Adding meaning
Image courtesy of Laney Smith
Meaningful activities are an excellent intervention for people with dementia. Why? They provide the opportunity for meaningful engagement, helping reduce loneliness and social isolation, reduce distressed behaviours, improve sleep, maintain / improve physical health and improve general well-being.
To understand what a meaningful activity for a person is, you need to get to know them. This in itself is a fantastic opportunity for reminiscence and life story work, but by understanding even the most simple things that make someone happy, you can support them to be as independent as possible and maintain quality of life. The key is often in their background so gathering as much information as possible can help to support that person to enrich their life and preserve ‘personhood’ which is who they are as a unique individual.
Over the years DSDC has seen some really inspiring meaningful activities. You may remember reading about the care home in Denmark who take their residents apple picking each year. They then use the apples to bake apple cakes together for afternoon tea. In the UK, there was a care home in Perthshire who invited pupils from the local primary and secondary schools in to work with the residents to create art for the care home, reflecting the residents’ life experiences.
Not all activities need to be as hands on. It’s worth remembering that hanging up the washing or reading a book can also be meaningful activities to some people. Setting the table, dusting, helping with meal preparation are all meaningful activities, as it is dependent on the person and what brings meaning to them.
Lambton House Care Home arranged for a poetry session for their residents as part of their activity programme at the end of last year. Prizewinning Poet Clive Wright came along and delivered a three hour poetry session that any resident could dip in and out of. Every resident had the opportunity to attend and feedback from residents and their families showed it was a worthwhile event.
World poetry day is on Monday 21st March this year. This could be an ideal opportunity to introduce an activity that is meaningful to the person/people you care for. Maybe you have an undiscovered poet living in your care home? Or maybe reading poetry is a conversation starter or the opportunity for reminiscence?
