Dementia care – Everwood

Dementia Care at Heartland Manor

At Heartland Manor, we have created a new Dementia Wing – Brock Village to support those living with dementia in our community. We understand the unique challenges faced by these individuals and have created a specialist wing to allow their daily journey to be one of stimulation and engagement but also calm and sensory when required.

Our new wing has been specifically designed to make each day interesting, to support each individual’s hobbies and interests, and to allow them to express themselves in a way that is comfortable for them and in safe surroundings. Our specialised dementia care program is designed to provide a safe, supportive, and nurturing environment for elderly residents with cognitive impairments.

Located in a village setting, Heartland Manor offers a peaceful retreat where residents can feel at home and receive the personalised care they deserve. Our dedicated team of care staff are trained in dementia care and best practices and are committed to enhancing the quality of life for each resident.

With a focus on person-centred care, we tailor our services to meet the individual needs and preferences of each resident. From engaging activities and memory-enhancing therapies to nutritious meals and comfortable accommodations, we strive to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere that promotes well-being and independence.

At Heartland Manor, families can have peace of mind knowing that their loved ones are in good hands. We prioritise open communication, transparency, and collaboration with families to ensure that their loved ones receive the highest standard of care.

Experience the difference that compassionate and comprehensive dementia care can make at Heartland Manor. Contact us today to learn more about our services and schedule a tour of our facility. Your loved one’s comfort, safety, and happiness will receive the highest standard of care.

Dementia care that focuses on stimulating residents and providing a sensory environment can greatly enhance the quality of life for individuals living with dementia. By incorporating sensory stimulation into the care environment, caregivers can create a more engaging and supportive atmosphere that promotes cognitive function, emotional well-being, and overall comfort for residents.

Sensory Environment

Here are some ways in which dementia care can stimulate residents and provide a sensory environment:

1. Multi-Sensory Activities: Engaging residents in activities that stimulate multiple senses, such as music therapy, aromatherapy, tactile stimulation, and visual art, can help trigger memories, improve mood, and enhance cognitive function.

2. Sensory Gardens: Creating outdoor spaces with sensory elements like fragrant flowers, textured plants, and soothing sounds can provide residents with a calming and stimulating environment for relaxation and sensory engagement.

3. Memory Boxes: Personalised memory boxes filled with familiar objects, photographs, and mementos can help residents reminisce about past experiences, trigger memories, and provide a sense of comfort and familiarity.

4. Sensory Room: Dedicated sensory rooms with interactive lighting, soothing music, tactile materials, and aromatherapy can offer residents a safe and calming space to relax, engage their senses, and reduce anxiety.

5. Sensory Dining Experiences: Incorporating sensory elements into mealtime, such as using colourful tableware, playing soft music, and serving aromatic foods, can enhance the dining experience for residents and stimulate their appetite and enjoyment of meals.

By implementing these strategies and creating a sensory-rich environment, dementia care providers can help residents feel more engaged, connected, and supported in their daily lives, ultimately improving their overall well-being and quality of life.

Our comfortable lounge offers a place to chat and relax, with a mix of dementia specialist books and interactive activities to enjoy.

Our sensory room has been designed for when things get overwhelming for our residents, here they can relax in the calm surroundings, listen to music, watch the sensory projections all to help them feel safe and relaxed.

Residents and their families can enjoy coffee and cake in the café, spending quality time together in the safety of the home. Our separate dining room allows for protected mealtimes for our residents to enjoy nutritiously balanced meals to meet all tastes and choices. Menus can be tailored to meet the needs of our residents.

Brock Village - our new dementia wing

The new wing provides our residents with a journey through the wing. Dementia residents like to walk with purpose so we ensured that their walking journey was one that allows them to orientate where they are within the wing. They will find a beach corridor that allows them to experience the sensory experience of being at the beach, being able to hear, smell and touch as part of this experience that we all take for granted.

The wing was created to reflect the local village of Brockenhurst and some of the retail community helped with ideas on how to support residents as they transition into the home. The wing has a post office, florist, café and activities room for residents to enjoy a mix of sensory experiences during their day, meeting the needs of individuals.

Our bedrooms have been individually designed so each resident is able to distinguish their own room, not only by the colour of their front door and individualised memory boxes but by the décor that has been designed to match the door colour to help with orientation.

Our comfortable lounge offers a place to chat and relax, with a mix of dementia specialist books and interactive activities to enjoy.

Information on dementia

Dementia is a progressive illness, meaning its symptoms will become worse with time. Some symptoms can impact a person’s ability to communicate effectively – both in the early and later stages of the illness. Being able to communicate well with someone after they’ve been diagnosed with dementia is really important.

There are some common symptoms of Dementia disease, but it is important to remember that everyone is unique. Two people with Dementia are unlikely to experience the condition in the same way, although some behaviours may be similar.

For most people with dementia, the earliest symptoms are memory lapses. They may have difficulty recalling recent events, misplace keys/ glasses or get lost in familiar places.

Whether you care for or supporting someone with dementia , good communication supports the person living with dementia sustain their relationships, feel included, and have their needs understood – remember, the person you love and care for is still there.

It’s important to remember people diagnosed with dementia don’t experience symptoms in the same way. Some of the most common ones that impact communication in the early stages of dementia include

difficulty following conversations or finding the right word
concentration difficulties
memory loss

So, a person might use words or substitute descriptions to communicate what they’re talking about. They may struggle to understand what you’re saying or mean, instead interpreting what you’ve said very differently. Words can also become scrambled, meaning speech is incoherent and lacks meaning, and is often difficult to understand.

As the illness progresses, some people may lose the ability to verbally speak altogether, which means non-verbal cues become a more important method of communication a. It won’t mean that you can’t communicate, Instead, it’s about adapting how you communicate to find a way that’s right for the individual.

Dementia affects different people in different ways. So, you can adapt these techniques to use those that you feel will work best for you and the person you’re communicating with. Here are just eight ways you can communicate with people with dementia:

Set the right environment: People living with dementia can find it difficult to focus on conversations when a lot is going on around them, this could be noise, feeling overcrowded, lighting, and temperature, if able the setting should be quiet, with minimal background noise – and with no distractions. And the space should be well-lit.
Choose the right time: Is there a known time during which the person can communicate and engage more effectively? If the answer is yes, try to use this time to talk and ask questions, and be mindful of over-communication.
Make sure of comfort: Any needs the person has should be met before you start talking. Pain, hunger/thirst, or any pain or distress is just an example of what could make a person less likely to engage
Speak slowly and clearly: Use short sentences and communicate calmly. You should avoid speaking to the person as you would a child. Please take into account that it may take them longer to process what you’re saying, and be respectful at all times
Time for a response: Even if it feels longer than usual or may at times feel uncomfortable, allow time to process what has just been said and provide their response. Try to avoid assuming what someone is trying to communicate to you or others.
Short regular conversations: Sometimes the person may tire quickly when talking, keeping the conversations short can help, and the communication can be carried out over regular intervals throughout a period of time.
Asking too many questions: Asking lots of questions or complex questions can cause the individual to become frustrated if they are looking for the right answer to give you. Questions that can be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ can be helpful to the person you are communicating with.
Rephrasing: You might find it helpful to rephrase some words if the person does not understand after you have repeated the question, or break it down into smaller, more manageable pieces – that are easier to understand.

Vascular Dementia

Vascular dementia is extremely common. In fact, it’s the second most common form of dementia – behind Alzheimer’s disease. It’s caused by a reduction in blood flowing to the brain. This results in a variety of symptoms, including memory loss and confusion – which we’ll explore in more detail, along with the signs and symptoms, causes and types of support available to those affected by the illness.

It affects people of all ages, though it’s rare in people under the age of 65 and currently there’s no cure. The NHS has estimated that vascular dementia impacts around 150,000 people in the UK.

Vascular dementia is the second most common cause (Alzheimer’s is the first): If the oxygen supply to the brain is reduced because of narrowing or blockage of blood vessels, some brain cells become damaged or die. This is what happens in vascular dementia. The symptoms can occur suddenly, following one large stroke. Or they can develop over time, because of multiple small strokes and may overlap with those of Alzheimer’s disease. Many people have difficulties with planning, thinking quickly and being able to concentrate on things. They may also have short periods when they can get very confused.

In the early stages, symptoms may be mild or difficult to notice, sometimes being mistaken for other health conditions, for example: depression or ongoing infections, as with other forms of dementia vascular dementia symptoms get worse over time. In the later stages, a person might experience:

Increasing levels of confusion and disorientation
Long term memory loss
Depression and changes in personality
Difficulty with balance
Communication issues, such as difficulty remembering words

Is there a difference between Alzheimer’s and Vascular Dementia?

Both forms of dementia have many similar symptoms, but they are different.

Vascular dementia is caused by reduced blood flow to the brain or small blockages in vessels.

Alzheimer’s. is caused by proteins building up in the brain to form structures called ‘plaques’ and ‘tangles’.

Lewy Bodies Dementia

Dementia with Lewy Bodies

This type of dementia involves tiny abnormal structures.

(Lewy bodies) forming inside brain cells. They disrupt the chemistry of the brain and lead to the death of brain cells. Early symptoms can include alertness that varies over the course of the day, hallucinations, and difficulties judging distances. A person’s day-to-day memory is usually affected less than in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia with Lewy bodies is closely related to Parkinson’s disease and often has some of the same symptoms, including difficulty with movement.

Symptoms of Lewy Body Dementia

Lewy body dementia symptoms typically take effect gradually, becoming worse over time. Everyone’s experience of dementia is different, but some of the most common symptoms include:

Hallucinations -is seeing and hearing things that aren’t really there. The hallucinations can be pleasant or distressing.
Irregular sleep patterns – may become of restless or experience intense dreams or nightmares.
Change in movement, shuffling when walking, slowness uncontrollable tremors commonly in the hands. rigid limbs, also common with Parkinson’s symptoms.
Being prone to falls due to balance
Sudden changes in alertness – may become sleepy and confused in a matter of minutes or hours
Changes to visual perception, ability to understand, and quick thinking. Progressively they will struggle to make judgments and challenges with language.
Swallowing difficulties may occur alongside bladder and bowel problems more common during the later stages.
Depression and anxiety.

Unlike other with other forms of Dementia (particularly Alzheimer’s), memory is less affected during the early stages of Lewy Body Dementia.

Lewy Bodies Dementia

Lewy Bodies, are abnormal protein clumps, that build up in brain cells. The deposits interfere with the connections between nerve cells parts of the brain, which then stops them from working correctly.

Lewy bodies typically gather in the areas of the brain that control thinking, movement, and visual perception. It is unknown what causes them to form. Dementia with Lewy Bodies commonly affects people with no family history of the illness.

Frontotemporal Dementia

Frontotemporal Dementia is a less common form of dementia. You might hear or have heard it referred to in its as Pick’s disease or abbreviated form (FTD) . this is also a progressive illness, in time it can cause problems with memory, thinking, mood, verbal communication, behaviour and emotions. According to Dementia UK, it accounts for around one in 20 dementia diagnoses.

Frontotemporal dementia is mostly found in younger people aged between 45 and 65.

Frontotemporal Dementia?

The symptoms of frontotemporal dementia (or Pick’s disease) affect people differently. They will vary on which parts of the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes are affected. Symptoms are usually mild at the start, but will slowly get worse as the illness progresses. This can include:

Changes to personality and behaviour, they can become easily distracted or have difficulty in expressing and lack an understanding of feelings.
Communication issues – speech may be affected, and words could be used incorrectly or not in the right order. Forgetting the meaning of words is common too.
A person may struggle when following instructions or to organise day to day tasks, day to day memory will decrease over time.
Slow or stiff movements, muscle weakness and swallowing conditions may also occur.

Mixed Dementia

Mixed Dementia

This is when someone has more than one type of dementia and a mixture of the symptoms of those types. It is common for someone to have both Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia together.

Stages

Three stages are commonly known as the early, middle ,late, end or final stages of dementia. These three stages are also referred to as mild, moderate and severe dementia – based on how the symptoms impact an individual living with them.

The main thing to note is they both describe the way dementia progresses.

Receiving a Dementia diagnosis can come as a real shock – not just to the person diagnosed, but to their friends and family too. There’s a lot to think about and, understandably, it can all feel overwhelming. Getting an understanding of dementia, what it is, its different forms, its symptoms and the help available, however, can be beneficial when it comes to supporting a loved one affected by the illness.