In this blog Alistair talks about the importance of the healthcare environment for people with dementia.
Key points
- Enhancing the healing environment, produced by the Kings Fund stresses the improtance in managing and ehancing the care environment to provide better outcomes for people who suffer from dementia
- There are lots of simple things that can be done to improve the care environment such as altering the lighting, signs and floor coverings
- The New Cross Hospital A&E department, Wolverhampton ran an initiative to look at the care of people with dementia, the communication between staff and the importance of good nutrition and hydration
- The New Cross hospital changed the layout of the A&E reception and an assessment shows a significant decrease in the number of falls. 87% of staff felt that their working environment had improved as a result
- Estates Managers of hospitals can also play a role by:
- Finding out who their hospitals dementia lead is
- Look into any initiatives that are going on in the hospital
- Work with people with dementia and their carers. Walk around the hospital with them to find out what is important for them, and what could be improved
- By changing the environment we can really improve the lives of people with dementia, not only in the general hospital setting, but also in care homes and other places.
Enhancing the healing environment is key in enabling people living with dementia to have better experiences in healthcare settings. Our work at Dementia Adventure always has ‘nature in mind’ and so I would ask the Department of Health and partners in the programme and others engaging with this blog – how can we bring nature into the health care environments to benefit people with dementia? A view of nature from a window, nurturing a small plant and walking in the hospital grounds all have good research evidence behind them which are often easily implemented.
Neil Mapes
Dementia Adventure CIC
I am a British Master of Social Work student undertaking a practice placement at a publicly-funded residential dementia care provider in British Columbia, Canada. The team here have produced papers on the very good work they do to ensure that the environment at the home promotes dignity and enhances quality of life for residents with dementia, in line with an integrated, person-centred model of care within a multi-disciplinary setting. You can find the papers – which expand on and elucidate the points made by Alistair – here:
http://broadmeadcare.com/news/innovation/together-we-are-stronger
I hope you find these of interest/use.