Kelly

I do something similar one Thursday a month, we call it THIRSTY THURSDAY.each time its different types of drinks, tea, flavored water, cordial, pop, hot chocolate, milkshakes. we do it like you would with a wine tasting talking and writing about our thoughts and preferences.

we also do something I call fruity Friday where we try a selection of fruits that our residents may never heard of or tried before.

I have a tub that has chocolate , small bags of sweets, crisp, crackers, shower gel, combs, nail kits, hand creams, perfumes, Just alsorts, The males always like the sweets and chocolates but the females like the other prizes things that they can use.

thanks you I have been told some of my ideas seem abit crazy at times, by my manager and relatives but I seem to pull it of most of the time.
I always have a little note book with me because I seem to get ideas and inspiration in the strangest places but I can jot them down and explore them later.
The home I am at is middle to end stage dementia so focus and concentration is not really the residents strengths. Years ago I attended a work shop that said try to get reminiscence into every activity, But I find that sometimes it can upset the residents trying to remember or remembering what live used to be like so like I said I try to focus more on imagination and if the residents would like to tell a story of their life that is linked to the theme/ activity then so be it, they are much more relaxed that way and dont feel like they are put on the spot/pressured to remember something.
An ex manager of mine always said "to get into their bubble with them instead of trying to pop it."

I do a few theme sessions through the month like the arm chair holiday, we do a thirsty Thursday club where we try different types of drinks (fruit teas, cordials, pop, milkshake etc)
this is to try and increase hydration
Fruity Friday club different types of fruit seasonal and tropical some of the tropical fruits available now my residents have never seen or heard of.
I do word search, tasting session with rating and discussion, drawing or colouring session, poem on our favorite exploring the 5 senses one sentence for each. singalong with actions
on each of these club groups.

I also do a chit chat club at the beginning of each month, for which I put together a mini news paper about 4/5 pages explaining if there is any significant days that month, celeb birthdays, resident and staff birthdays, a small quiz, song lyrics with words missing a small reminiscence coloum with a picture of an old brand or film poster. I also include the homes news on the back page with whats going to be happening a message from the manager and any information that relatives and visitors should know. We use them in our session and I leave them around the home. Relatives and visitors use them when visiting to spark conversations with the residents. The today in history on this site are great for looking for things to put in my paper.

We have a mother and toddler group come up a few times a year, and visits from the donkey sanctuary.

Why dont you instead of it all being reminisence ,get the residents using there imagination aswell. Make some cards with different professions on them put them in seperate envelopes and get 1 resident at a time to open 1 then have a group disscussion on what they would wear for that job, what they would do, times they worked. like an imaginative work placement.
I plan a few different activities to do in the session that would take about 20mins each, if we do them all great but sometimes we spend longer on those that they are enjoying more.
I havent tried it with jobs as such but I do something similar called ARM CHAIR Holiday.

Where its imagination but reminisence can play a part if the residents choose.
We pretended to fly out to france and looked at loads of pictures/photos of landmarks and spoke about what we would do there. we listened to traditional french music and made a collage of the flag and places we had spoke about. The kitchen did a french inspired menu for the day and we had flags up and music on. At the end of the session we wrote a post card back to everyone with the group telling me what to write, they all picked different things up from what we did and part off the post card said that we had danced the can can in the moulin rouge. The visitors and families thought it was great. Our next trip is to india in a few weeks hopefully we will be featuring in our own Bollywood film, riding elephants and shopping for spices.

We used to have a lady from Zumba Gold come in to us they specialise in arm chair exercise and exercise for disabillities the residents loved it . We could get an average of 10 taking part with the full hr , some wandering in and out and some just liked to watch and listen to the music. Due to budgeting costs we dont have her come at the moment. But I bought some dvds on line called MOVE IT OR LOOSE IT these are armchair based exercise routines a little calmer than the zumba and go down well with our residents.
I also use a Black lace cd (cant go wrong with a party cd) with all sorts on it Agado, Okey Cokey, Time warp, the conga, YMCA, everyone knows the songs and actions so we just get silly even all the staff and visitors join in with these its amazing how the silly songs seem to make everyone in the home smile and cheer up.
I also have ribbons and pom poms, flags and scarves to try to disguise light exercise as some times when I ask
"would you like to join in with the exercise session this afternoon?"
I get a lot of replies like I dont do exercise, Exercise? no!!!.
If I prance around the room with ribbons or something similar I get a lot of smiles and residents prancing with me.


What did you do at work today Kelly well I did the conga and time warp and danced about with some ribbons. lol (god I love my job)

Hi Sharon , Do you complete assessments with your care plans for abilities?
I use a tool called the Poole activity level (PAL) it assesses residents into 4 groups dependent on abilities and activity level. I then use this to write each residents care plan as it explains each level and what type of activity is good for that level. Of course I use the residents life stories as well to ensure the care plans are personal centered.
Research Jackie Poole

I work in a similar environment,middle to end stage dementia. I tend to do 1-1 sessions in the morning with an allocated few or that day, and for the rest in the area I put on some music or hand out some quizzes, reading materials for those who can.
The mornings are very busy with carers assisting with morning routines and breakfasts that it just didn't make sense fr me to do a group session in the morning. I do my group sessions in an afternoon.