Dementia care Case study - Ashlands Care Home
Ashlands Care Home has a lovely entrance hall – spacious, with good natural light – and is full of excellent reminiscence points of interest, including a bus stop, an old fashioned shop front displaying a range of goods and a post box. However, it is also a place where residents congregate. There is no access to outside space, which can cause a lot of frustration for residents and staff members. The difficulty with the home layout was that when
looking back from the entrance there was just one narrow corridor that, prior to making the changes, appeared to lead to a dead end and therefore offered no clear pathway around the home, causing frustration and boredom. The corridor was redecorated to look like a street. A dark floor with brick effect below the handrail has given the perception of a much wider corridor. The bedroom doors are painted different colours and window graphics have been introduced in between them for a more lifelike appearance. There are real windows looking into the main lounge (offering natural daylight) and we installed shutters around these to shape the view and further enhance the appearance of a street. The street scene is very natural and has a safe feel to it, which can substantially reduce
with appropriate levels of stimulation. Doll therapy has recently been
introduced to many homes and found to be particularly popular with people with later stage dementia. According to doll therapy expert, Gary Mitchell, giving a doll to a resident who is distressed and agitated (when appropriate) can be hugely comforting and calming. In addition to the built environment,
contrasting coloured crockery should also be recognised as an environmental aid. If a person cannot see food on their plate, they can become aggressive and even violent as they believe other people are being given food and they are being excluded. Other residents will simply not eat as much as they need, resulting in malnutrition and dehydration. Many care homes are now introducing
new areas, such as cafes and even bars. These areas encourage social interaction between residents, which in turn increase energy levels as they are more stimulated. As well as promoting a calm environment, which reduces agitation, these new areas also encourage better eating habits and sleep patterns, both of which are important for overall wellbeing and quality of life.
Conclusion It is not difficult to imagine how frustrating a move into a care home must be for an individual. A combination of factors such as unfamiliar surroundings and people, being unable to
feelings of anxiety. At the bottom of the corridor we introduced a mural showing a parkland scene to encourage residents to walk away from the main entrance to other places of interest. When residents reach the parkland scene, they turn round the corner and there is a mural outside the dining room which prompts them to enter where they can find drinks and snacks. Alternatively, a resident can choose to continue walking past the dining room and follow a different pathway which again eventually takes them into the dining room through another door. There is access from the dining into the lounge and then from either room back onto the corridor, completing a circuit around the home. As residents are now more active around the home, with
points of interest increasing stimulation and reducing levels of stress and agitation, staff are able to introduce different activities and can spend more quality time interacting with residents. Ashlands Care Home are currently decorating an unused
room and changing it into an activity cafe. This will offer another area of interest for residents where there are good levels of stimulation and the opportunity for social interaction. This room also offers excellent external views and lots of natural daylight.
communicate your feelings and explain to someone what you are looking for, a lack of choice and all decisions being made for you, must at times be unbearably frustrating, confusing and depressing. The environment can in so many ways
be designed to compensate for many of the difficulties encountered daily. Good signage, recognisable orientation aids, different areas of interest and bespoke personal space are just a few changes that can help a person live well and continue to enjoy life. Keeping people
Karen Clayton
With her background in customer services and bespoke sales solutions, Find Memory Care was in its infancy when Karen joined the team. There was so much to learn about how the environment could impact on the quality of life for someone living with dementia, and the more she learned, the more her passion for sharing that knowledge with others to make a difference developed. “It continually amazes me how, when presented with a problem in any dementia care setting, our knowledge and experience enables us to identify simple yet innovative solutions that result in positive change. We have achieved so much already but continue to work on new projects in all healthcare settings,” she says.
January 2017 •
www.thecarehomeenvi ronment .com 27
active in care homes and ensuring the appropriate levels of stimulation are available will help to reduce aggression and agitation, resulting in the need for reduced levels of medication. Changes need to be made now, not
only for today’s residents, but to ensure we future proof our healthcare facilities. No one knows what the future holds, but when looking at care homes, the question we should all be asking is, “Is this care home good enough for me and for those I care about?” If the answer is no, we must take action to change it now.
TCHE
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