Make your own Touch Quilt for someone living with dementia

Lanark Leeds Grenville

Jane Roszell, Touch Quilt Coordinator at the Ottawa Valley Quilters Guide, has put together a step-by-step document on how to make your own Touch Quilt at home for someone living with dementia in your life. These quilts are commonly used to comfort, calm, and stimulate anxious patients with mid - to late-stage Alzheimer's disease and related dementia.

touch quilt

A Fidget, Fiddle, Touch Quilt or Sensory Activity Blanket is a small lap quilt, mat, or blanket that provides sensory and tactile stimulation for the restless or "fidgety" hands of someone with Alzheimer’s disease, or related dementia, autism, and developmental challenges.

These quilts are pieced from fabrics with a variety of textures and colors placed next to one another and embellished with accents or simple accessories such as pockets, laces, trims, appliques, buttons, secured beads, ribbons, braids, etc. The most common use of touch quilts is to comfort, calm, and stimulate anxious patients with mid - to late-stage Alzheimer's disease and related dementia.

A downloadable PDF document has been created to help those who want to make a touch quilt for someone they love to do so at home. The 'how-to' lays out how to design and make these very valuable quilts. There are also many block designs and enhancements that can be added to the quilt blocks for you to adapt if you wish.

Download the document here.