This is lovely! Thanks Kate for sharing! 😀
I am delighted to share this very short video about Group Homes Australia, the one residential dementia and aged care group home I believe I would be happy to live in… and I would also love Maria who works there, to look after me! I don’t usually so actively promote private or any businesses, but this one is worth sharing, and hopefully, replicating. I really do hope others will invest in major change, and join this style of residential home care soon.
Great news! Australia’s dogs 4 dementia program is expanding! Yeah! I remember seeing their booth at a dementia conference in 2012 thinking, wow I hope that this program continues to grow because it sure is a fantastic idea.
This is a collaboration between Hammondcare and Assistance Dogs Australia (ADA). A six to ten months training is required before the lovely dogs start assisting The assistance dogs can help to provide
– a routine
– help with reminders
– emotional support
– help around the house (close cupboards, pick up items etc.)
Here’s a video from ABC about Dogs 4 Dementia (See below), for an earlier post with more videos on dogs caring for people with dementia in Australia and in Scotland, read Happy National Dogs Day. Or click here for the ABC article on Dogs 4 Dementia.
If you have 5 mins today, you’ve got to watch this video on music, memory and dementia that is being carried out in the Redleaf manor aged care home in New South Wales, Australia. The video (ABC iview-catalyst) shares with viewers insight into this new programme on personlised playlist that can greatly improve the quality of life and well-being of the individual.
The programme helps people to
– reconnect with family
– brings people out of their shell
– brings out positive emotions
Music should be accessible in all care facilities, and prescribed music can help to elevate agitation and reduce the use of antipsychotics (medications)in a study by Standford University.
Music is the only stimulus that activates a range of centres in the brain, aside from memories (temporal lobe and amygdala), music also touches on the movement centres and emotional. This gives answers to the reactions that occur when a person with dementia listens to music despite the progressive deterioration of the brain.
Looking back at our infants, how many of us have played music or sang our babies to sleep? In prelinguistic stages, the environment consists of music and sounds of happiness or sadness or fear. Babies react to the powerful effect of music.
Music is a powerful medium that it is pivotal to our brain’s health.
You can watch the 30min episode here but it’s only available for people living in Australia
http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/catalyst/SC1502H006S00, for those living outside of Australia you can try this link http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4421003.htm .
Oxford Brookes University has devised a training programme to help staff working with people with dementia to come close to understanding the experience of living with dementia. This programme is carried out by a facilitator and participants have to wear a stimulation suit as part of the process. This aids the experiential learning process and creates some awareness of the needs of the individual with dementia.
The programme has proved to be successful and has helped care workers to better understand the experience of living with dementia; and in turn influence and improve the quality of care that they provide to the people they care for.
You can read more about the programme here here http://www.chc.brookes.ac.uk/training/dementia-simulation
A beautiful and empowering video on understanding mindfulness and how it can help us. The video allows everyone from young and old to have a glimpse into what Mindfulness can do for you and how it can empower you to be a better person and live a better life no matter the age.
A recent article by BBC Scotland health correspondent touches on the plights of younger adults placed in care homes for the elderly due to the lack of services in the community.
Romana (seen below) is one of the many in Scotland who was placed in a care home for the elderly when she suffered a brain haemorrhage at the age of 23, whilst pregnant.
Given the non-purpose built environment, the community in the care home and the level of services of care, it was no appropriate for a person such a Romana. She felt she had lost her family. It took 2 years before she was offered a place in a neurological centre in Aberdeen according to the article.
Pamela Mackenzie (Sue Ryder’s assistant director Scotland) was quoted as saying that “Romana was quite a different lady when she first came. She was withdrawn and depressed and she really had been written off.”
This is certainly an important issue to address the inequalities in care and ensure that younger adults attain the right services that need for rehabilitation to enable them to return to their families.
Image from the original article, for more information read: ‘Hundreds’ of young in old people’s homes
Designing for Aged Care 