News
Jane Bell takes over Care Suites Unit
You may be aware that I was personally overseeing the management of the Care Suites at Cornford House since they became available for occupation last year. Although the residents of the Care Suites technically live "in their own homes", renting or owning the lease outright and enjoying extra space and the flexibility this provides, we are keen to ensure that they receive the very same levels of care and support as those living in the nursing and dementia units and at a commensurate cost.
Now that the number of residents has increased, a dedicated manager has been appointed and I am delighted to inform you that Jane Bell, the previous manager of our dementia unit, has taken on this new role. With Jane's extensive experience of general nursing, she will be providing nurse-led management of the unit, such that even the highest level of care need can be met.
New Activities Programme for the Dementia Unit
We have been considering how we can develop more specialised activities for the residents in our dementia unit and we have now decided to have a dedicated activities person in the unit from mid-morning to late afternoon every week day. We are pleased to announce that Eni Silveira has now joined the team at Cornford House to fulfil this role and Eni will be liasing with Fleur to provide a full and varied programme for the dementia unit.
It is universally recognized that elderly people with dementia lose their short term memory first and their long term memory last. For example, they often remember people and events from their earlier years, but have difficulty remembering what they ate for breakfast the day before.
This makes it difficult for our residents to engage in normal conversation, so how can we do worthwhile activities with them? Our answer is to “relax and have fun"!
Our activities staff will therefore be concentrating on the following:
Reminiscence!
Lots of things we do together lend themselves to reminiscing. If the person can still speak fairly well, we may say, “Tell me about...” If the resident’s vocabulary is more limited, we may have to facilitate the story. “Do you remember when...”. As we are baking cakes together, we may talk about residents' favourite meals, etc
Reading aloud, with the use of visual aids
This may include memory poems, family pictures, or stories about "the days gone by". Group quizzes often stimulate memories of forgotten knowledge just waiting to be recalled.
Music
Music may include singing, humming, whistling, dancing, etc. Singing brings oxygen to the brain and helps us all to think more clearly while dancing exercises other parts of the body. They both increase residents’ sense of well-being. To add more variety, we will be arranging for musical entertainers to visit, Tracey now gives out instruments during our music sessions and we may also choose from the residents' favourite cassettes and CD’s.
Sensory stimulation activities
These could include the following:
- Making lap quilts
- Painting and colourful crafts
- Talking books
- Scrap books and photograph albums
- Flower arranging
- Visits by school children
- Baking
- Happy hour with non-alcoholic drinks
- Ice cream party
- Brushing & fixing a resident’s hair
- Manicures
- Model building
The activities staff will welcome feedback from the residents’ relatives and friends, as this will help them to fine tune the programmes around the specific interests of the residents.