Dementia staff have senses impaired during training
to increase understanding of living with condition
Staff
at a city care home have been given an insight into life with dementia as part
of a new training scheme.
Members
of Ivy Court Care Home, on Ivy Road, Norwich, donned gloves, glasses, and ear
plugs, before entering a room staged to further impair their senses - to give
them a taste of the challenges people with the condition face daily.
Michele
Saunders, who runs the scheme, said: “We’re immersing them in practical
understanding of what it feels like to live with dementia every day.”
The
training room contained flashing lights, low background lighting, a blaring TV,
and a switched-on vacuum cleaner.
Participants
were then told to perform basic tasks such as putting on a shirt and doing it
up, pairing socks, completing a puzzle, and finding a teddy bear.
The
12-minute experience is designed to simulate the confusion, heightened
sensitivity to sound, and loss of feeling in extremeties, which are some of the
symptoms of the various forms of dementia.
The
programme is being rolled out across East Anglia-based company Caring Homes
Group UK, of which Ivy Court is part.
Ms
Saunders, dementia training lead for the company, added: “It’s about finding
the difficulties that most of us take for granted which dementia patients
struggle with.
“For
many staff it gives them a ‘lightbulb moment’ and I hope it increases their
empathy and ability to understand why and how their mobility is affected.”
Billy
McKee, one of the staff-members at Ivy Court, said: “It was hard to do what we
were asked.
“It
taught me to allow the person time to use the abilities they have.”
SOURCE:
Eastern Daily Press. Nicholas Carding
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