Excellent news from the team at Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust, where the Dementia Forum includes a team of fabulous volunteers. The volunteers engage with patients in order to provide activities and social interaction during their stay. As you’ll see, the recent flower-arranging sessions went very well!
The whole team can use the dementia interaction skills taught by the Butterfly Scheme to help them in their work, but two of the volunteers have direct experience of using the Scheme during their professional lives, too; they’re both former staff members who have retired and now come back to the hospitals as volunteers!
People with dementia or with memory problems can find it especially stressful to self-entertain when out of their usual environment and routine. Staff will do all they can to provide that input, but they’re often unable to offer the amount of time they’d wish to. For patients with memory impairment, empty time can lead to increased stress; contrast that with sitting round a table, engaging in an activity and enjoying a chat and a cup of tea. Even if people can’t remember the activity itself afterwards, the benefits of that relaxing time can last for several hours.
I remember when my own mother went to her brilliant day centre, Bay Tree Resource Centre in Leeds, which she loved. She’d have forgotten by the time she got back that she’d even been out, but the effects of the day lasted until bedtime; anyone who knew her could see at a glance how relaxed she was after a day at Bay Tree. I think we can sometimes underestimate the therapeutic power of socialisation and insightfully-led interactions, as well as the extent of their beneficial effects for a significant time after the events themselves have taken place.
Butterfly Scheme Lead at Shropshire Community Trust, Andrew Thomas, says: “Enthusiasm and hard work have led to improvements in caring for our patients with dementia and other memory impairment issues. Volunteers with a particular interest in helping out with these patients can give them access to a precious commodity … time”.