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HH Nurse Honors Father’s Legacy, Provides Fidget Blankets To Patients With Alzheimer’s

September 23, 2024 | Reading Time: 3 minutes
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Nurse Tammy Baer holds fidget blanket

Within the Labor and Delivery Unit at Huntsville Hospital for Women and Children, one nurse is – quite literally – weaving compassion into her work with patients experiencing Alzheimer’s disease or Dementia.

Registered Nurse and Clinical Education Specialist Tammy Baer has delivered care at Huntsville Hospital for more than 30 years, primarily serving the hospital’s youngest patients – and their mothers.

This summer, Baer began dedicating time outside of work to serve a different patient population. Following the loss of her father in late 2022 to a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Baer felt a personal calling to help support patients and their families walking through a similar journey.

In March of 2024, Baer and her mother began hand-sewing blankets for elderly patients in the community and at Huntsville Hospital Main in memory of her father, Bobby Calhoun.

The blankets were atypical – special in nature – and designed with Alzheimer’s patients in mind. At just under three feet long, Baer’s “fidget” blankets aren’t for providing warmth, but for keeping minds active. Though still designed with soft, comforting fabric and fashioned in love, these blankets provide support to patients through sensory activities. Each blanket contains small elements, such as zippers, Velcro, texture strips, bells, beads and shiny material, for anxiety relief and distraction.

“In my mind, I’m thinking about what my dad would have enjoyed,” says Baer. “And it’s very joyful when you see someone get the blanket. You see how it helps them. It’s something so small that means so much.”

close up view of fidget blanket

Geriatric physician Linnea Pepper, MD, affirms the benefits of fidget blankets for this patient population. Pepper serves on the American Board of Internal Medicine for Geriatric Medicine and is a member of the staff at Huntsville Hospital and Huntsville Hospital for Women & Children.

“Older adults with dementia who are hospitalized experience unique challenges, including increased anxiety or agitation triggered by the change of environment or other factors,” says Pepper.

As a geriatrician, Pepper encounters patients with dementia and cognitive impairment every day.

“Common behaviors we see are restlessness and inadvertent attempts to dislodge medical devices such as IVs, telemetry monitors, and catheters,” she continues. “The fidget blankets provide cognitive stimulation to help mitigate boredom and prevent patients from interfering with medical devices. Having fidget blankets available to these patients is absolutely key to providing high quality, compassionate care.”

Baer delivered her first blankets on Father’s Day Weekend to the memory facility where her own father received care during his last months with them. She provided blankets to five families, handing each one to the patient in person.

Just one month later, Huntsville Hospital learned how Baer had been spending her time outside of work, and presented her the opportunity to provide 70 fidget blankets to be distributed to patients with Alzheimer’s and Dementia as needed.

The blankets were funded by the Huntsville Hospital Foundation and generous Huntsville community as part of the hospital’s Forget Me Not program, which aims to help physicians, nurses, caregivers, family members, and loved ones increase awareness for the care of Dementia and Alzheimer’s patients and provide compassionate and effective care to patients experiencing disorientation, memory loss, and forgetfulness.

Beginning this fall, Huntsville Hospital nurses can deliver blankets to patients under their care who don a Forget Me Not armband, indicating a new or past medical history or symptoms upon admission of Dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

Forget Me Not Program Director Kaneesha Knight anticipates the blankets becoming available to patients as early as late September.

The mother-daughter duo named their efforts “Bobby’s Blankets” as a way to keep their late father and husband’s memory alive and continue to help this patient population.

A Purple Heart recipient and Vietnam War veteran, Bobby Calhoun served four tours of duty before retiring from the U.S. Army and National Guard in 1989 as Sergeant First Class. He was a loving husband, father to two children, and grandfather to eight grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. He showed great compassion and kindness to others, and never met a stranger. Bobby loved his family and enjoyed running, fishing, playing cards, and dominoes.

Each blanket incorporates the colors red, white and blue to symbolize his service and a Forget Me Not flower to symbolize love and remembrance.

Baer has established Bobby’s Blankets underneath an existing faith-based, family-owned nonprofit called The Zone Foundation, founded in 2022 to help meet the physical needs of individuals and families.

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