A 1950s-themed memory room has been created to help nurses create relationships with dementia patients, in order to offer more personalised care.
Hardworking staff and volunteers at the Manthorpe Centre, in Grantham, one of Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s (LPFT) dementia inpatient units, have spent the last three months transforming the interactive space, which can now be enjoyed by all the patients.
The room will be available to dementia patients whose needs are too complex to be safely managed within the community.
Liz Lester, occupational therapist at Manthorpe, who originally came up with the idea, said the room will help encourage patients to reminisce about their past lives so staff can get to know them better and deliver more personalised care.
She said: “The idea is to provide objects which hopefully get them remembering something about their past and to start a conversation – we use reminiscence as therapy and this can have a really calming effect on patients.
“Dementia care is changing. In the past, the focus was very much on the disease and impairment, however, the aim now is to identify each patient’s strengths and remaining abilities and to adapt the environment to maximise these – the 1950s lounge is a way of doing this,” Lester added.
