Women are meeting a need of those suffering from dementia

January 20, 2022

An injury Mary Hume experienced opened her eyes to a community need.

Now, she’s rallying others to help meet that need.

In 2016, Hume fell on stairs, injuring her spine and breaking her leg.

While she spent time recovering at a nursing home, she discovered many residents paced or fidgeted. She asked God for direction on how she could assist.

“I was very disturbed that so many I knew and worked with had Alzheimer’s and were agitated, pacing,” she said. 

Two weeks after going home, she read an article in a Lions Club magazine about ladies in the United Kingdom who knit or crocheted twiddle muffs for Alzheimer’s patients, and an idea was born. A twiddle muff is a kind of cuff or tube made out of material or yarn that has an opening for each hand to go through. Inside and around it, there are small things that one’s fingers can fidget.

“Bingo, that was it,” she said. “I asked our Lions Club to join and help make these for the nursing homes in Council Bluffs,” she said. None of them could be sold; she wanted all of them to be free for patients.
The following year, she had samples and introduced them to the nursing homes.

“We got such good response,” Hume said. “We supplied them to all nursing homes.”

She learned that the muffs were appreciated by those with autism, Asperger’s and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Soon, Hume and her friends were delivering them to schools, hospice centers, counselling services, dialysis units, police and fire departments and Catholic Charities Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault shelter in Council Bluffs.

“A lady from the shelter met me at a fundraiser garage sale for the Lions Club, saw them and asked to buy one. I said, ‘No, but I will give you one.’ She suggested I call the shelter and said she wished she had one when she was at the shelter,” Hume said.

“Some of our guests at the shelter really take comfort in the twiddle muffs. The muffs are an outlet for nervous energy during some really difficult times,” said Sapana Sharma, interim program manager.
By mid-2019, she’d distributed 3,000 muffs. 

Ladies from Corpus Christi Parish in Council Bluffs assist, headed by Ruth Ann Duff. 

“Each muff we make is made with love and understanding and our prayer that the next owner gets peace from their anguish,” Hume said. 

To help sew or contribute items for making the twiddle muffs, contact Hume at 416 Oakland Ave., Council Bluffs, Iowa  51503.