Astrid

Hi
Just letting you know Sansevieria is a classified class R environmental weed in Queensland, Australia and even there are no restrictions on it being sold (go figure) it is highly invasive in native habitats and spread via its rhizomes and also by birds and insects who eat the brightly colourd fruit. Maybe choose other hardy plants that are not weeds by checking your local council's weed identification information so you do the right thing by the environment. Happy potting everyone!

A new activity has been posted by a Golden Carers member: Little Leprechaun Hats

In Australia go to the following for resources and downloads to help celebrate National Volunteers week from 9 to 15 May for 2016. This is the website: http://www.volunteeringaustralia.org/nvw/ As the theme is "Give happy Live happy" we are going to decorate the dining room in bright colours and balloons, bunting and have a circus theme with a staff member (probably me) dress up in our clown costume or our facility's mascot costume. We have invited the volunteers and I have asked some of the elders to serve on the volunteers during the shared morning tea. We will use the certificates of appreciation that you can download and we used the invitation download too. There are smiley props to download, laminate and use during the event too.

I laminated the pieces of the decorated leprechaun to then blu tack to the wall except for the face which had cotton wool. Its part of this years st patricks day display which was put up in the weeks leading up to the day. See photos. This is a high traffic area in the care centre where the display changes often to reflect different themes for everyone to enjoy.

How do you manage cats in pet therapy? Out of a pet carrier they are liable to be unfamiliar with their surroundinga and may resist being held by elders. I would be concerned with cats scratching people. Any suggestions are welcome as i know there are cat lovers here and they would love to have a cat visit. I would bring my own pet cat if someone can say how they manage visiting cats.

If anyone hasnt already done so, Pintrest is excellent for inspiration on how and what to do for almost anything or topic. Just mind how much time you will want to spend exploring every good idea!

Another rare type of dementia not mentioned in your article is Posterior Cortical Atrophy where people experience decline in processing visual information and therefore progressively lose the ability to interpret what they see. It results in nonrecognition of objects, problems with spatial awareness, depth perception, judging distance as well as problems with speech and thought. The Australian Alzheimers Association have very good fact sheets available on their website for alot of the specific types of dementia; well worth the look.

I gave some samples of font types, sizes and layouts to our elders to choose from and the most popular one was one that I could print onto a template and then cut and fit into plastic covers that had clips attached. It had the elders first and surname shown in bold large font with our facility's logo in one corner and then our address listed at the bottom. As it was a suggestion from our elders I also submitted it as a Continuous Improvement in to our facilitys admin. Many did wear the tag initially but most now need reminding to wear them!:)

We had a PJ day where staff and elders were invited to wear PJs and come to a special morning tea with hot chocolate and marshmallows and special biscuits for a change. Elders enjoyed seeing staff out of uniform and having some fun with teddy bears. etc.

We often take the pancake mix and ingredients and toppings with us on our weekly bus outings and cook the pancakes on picnic ground BBQs for afternoon tea. Elders assist cooking and enjoy making and eating the pancakes outdoors.