At our care home Worcester one of our key nursing home policies through dementia care is that our residents stay as stimulated and as active as possible. Just because an elderly person is in need of extra support and moves into our Worcestershire care home, does not mean that all they want to do is withdraw and watch TV!
Pauline, our Activities Coordinator, looks after what our residents at Stanfield Nursing Home do in between their mealtimes and before bed so they are not just sat in a chair. She is the embodiment of our nursing home policy of staying active and stimulated. It’s her absolute passion to provide an enjoyable and encouraging environment for all of our residents to participate in.
Many of our residents do suffer from dementia, Parkinson’s and other age-related conditions that affect what and how they manage physical and cognitive activities.
Regardless of this, Pauline and her team make sure that whatever their level of capability, all of our residents are able to join in staying active and stimulated.
Stanfield’s nursing home policy is to provide the highest level of care to our residents. But, where it’s appropriate, we also want to do that with an injection of fun!
Pauline has a saying which she says to the carers at our nursing home and everybody who she meets, which sums this up perfectly:
“smiling is infectious, you get it like the flu. Someone gives it to you and you give it to someone else.“
Staying Active & Stimulated At Our Care Home Worcester
Through our dementia care in Worcestershire, activities take many forms. Whether it be a quiz or activities or maybe a bit of gardening, or a puzzle. It can be anything our residents want to do. It’s their choice.
We have lots of things going on throughout the week. One of our residents’ favourites is Kim and his Karaoke machine.
We get the residents to sing as they would if they had gone out for the evening and they’d get up on the karaoke machine. Everybody gets to have a sing if they want. It doesn’t matter about making mistakes. That makes us all laugh and so makes it all the more fun. None of us can sing, we just have fun!
Other ways of staying active and stimulated through dementia care includes games and quizzes.
To keep things interesting we make sure there’s variety. We change things around. We’ll do different things altogether. We’ll also do the same thing but change the room so it looks different. We’ll play different music. Some days it might be Elvis, the next it’s Dolly Parton. We’ll have a bit of a dance and a giggle, changing direction as we go.
The importance of staying active and stimulated is a key part of the care we provide at our nursing home. With Pauline and her team, our residents get to enjoy a whole range of activities that keeps the cogs turning, the joints moving and their hearts lifted.
In fact, Pauline sums it up perfectly when she says:
“If you sat and watched telly all day, or you sat and you really didn’t have any stimulation in your life, you would just go down and down. You’d stop communicating, you’d stop talking, you’d stop laughing. But I am a chatterbox, and the residents, they’ve only got to hear my voice and they’ll go, “Here she comes!” And it puts a smile on their face, and that’s enough for me, that is brilliant for me, because as soon as I come in they know who I am. That is amazing for me. I love it.”
You may like to watch this short video of Pauline talking about staying active at our care home too.
Yours,
Richard White
Director
If you are considering care home care for yourself or a loved one and would like to find out more, you are very welcome to speak to us on 01905 679832. You are also very welcome to arrange to have a look around our home and gardens.
You may also like to read our previous blog on the Memory Tree at our Worcester Care Home with Nursing.