Play as Imagination: Why Storytelling and Roleplay Ease One of Dementia’s Toughest Seasons

As daylight shortens, something in the body notices before the mind does. Mood dips a little. Sleep gets restless. Evenings can feel longer and harder to settle into. For people living with dementia, this seasonal shift can be especially disorienting – which is exactly why October’s Power of Play theme at Artis turns toward imagination.

How Less Daylight Affects Mood and Sleep

Light regulates the body’s internal clock, the circadian rhythm that governs when we feel alert and when we feel ready to rest. As days shorten in the fall, reduced daylight exposure can disrupt that rhythm, contributing to low mood, increased restlessness, and disrupted sleep. For people living with dementia, whose internal clocks may already be affected by changes in the brain, this seasonal shift can intensify symptoms sometimes known as sundowning – confusion, agitation, or unease that tends to build as afternoon turns to evening.

That restless energy needs somewhere to go. Imaginative play – like storytelling or roleplay – gives it a good and fun place to land.

Why Imagination Helps

Imaginative play gives the mind a place to direct its energy that carries no risk of a wrong answer. A story can go anywhere. Roleplay can be anyone. This openness matters: activities without a “correct” outcome lower performance pressure, which in turn eases anxiety and invites genuine engagement.

So much of daily life for a person with dementia involves being reminded or gently redirected. Imaginative play sidesteps all of that. It asks someone to enter into a story or a role, together, with nothing to “get right.”

“Storytelling and roleplay meet people exactly where they are, without asking them to prove anything,” said Nena Fromm, Senior Director of Life Enrichment at Artis Senior Living.

Low Pressure, Real Engagement

This is the strength of imaginative play: because nothing is being tested, people often engage more fully. A resident who has grown quiet during structured activities may light up when invited to step into a role that once came naturally – giving a toast at a family celebration, taking on the voice of a character from a favorite film, or picking up a story mid-sentence and deciding where it goes next.

October’s Gourd Imagination Lab

Artis brings this theme to life this month with the Gourd Imagination Lab, a sensory-forward celebration of fall’s quirkiest, most versatile natural materials. Residents paint gourds with sponges and rollers, press them into paint to make stamp art, or wrap them in yarn and ribbon. Others turn dried gourds into instruments – filling them with rice or beans, shaking them, and comparing quiet sounds to loud ones. A texture bar invites hands-first exploration: tracing ridges, warming gourds, polishing them with scented oil. Some communities are building a shared “gourd village,” painting gourds in soft fall colors and arranging them into houses and barns with fabric roofs and doors.

Each activity works the same way: one material, many ways in. There’s no fine-motor precision required, and no memory test built in, only touch, sound, color, and imagination. Residents might sort gourds by size, roll them down a ramp to see which travels fastest, or simply hold one and notice its weight. However someone joins in, they belong at the table.

Small Moments Worth Noticing

Imagination can be spontaneous – a raised eyebrow during a story, a hand reaching for a silly hat, or a few extra minutes of attention during roleplay. These moments are more important than whether a story makes sense or a costume is worn correctly. The goal is connection, and a little lightness carried into a season that can sometimes feel heavy.

Storytelling and roleplay won’t change how early it gets dark. They can change how that darkness feels – giving restless energy a warm, playful place to go, and giving residents and families a shared moment of delight along the way.

At Artis Senior Living, we support residents through the change in seasons with:

Life enrichment programming that includes daily imaginative and sensory-based activities

A living environment designed to ease disorientation and support steady routines

Daily care grounded in creativity, connection, and meeting each resident where they are

Sources:
Alzheimer’s Association, “Sleep Issues and Sundowning” – https://www.alz.org/help-support/caregiving/stages-behaviors/sleep-issues-sundowning