Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
E TO RECONNECT
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Anyone from the local community can use the room, and it has been such a success that Trafford Housing Trust plans to roll the project out across the borough. laine says: “We have seen people from the local community bring their relatives with dementia here as a way of getting them to talk. It is strange but it does work.
“We want everybody in Trafford to have access to a reminiscence room so we are going to roll it out across our schemes.”
Fiona Gardens – named in memory of PC Fiona Bone, who lived locally and was one of two officers killed by drug dealer Dale Cregan – also has a sensory room, hair salon, craft room and restaurant.
Since living there, Dorothy has learned how to paint. She says: “I really enjoy it, and I didn’t even realise I could paint.”
The home is a blueprint that could well be copied in other parts of the country. There are 850,000 people with dementia in the UK, set to rise to more than one million by 2025. By 2051 this will soar to
Etwo million, the Alzheimer’s Society says. Elaine says: “We are definitely seeing dementia becoming more prevalent, we’ve had to adapt our services accordingly. “We have 71 flats here and 15 residents have some form of dementia at varying stages. Years ago that wasn’t the case. “Reminiscence has been proven to improve people’s well-being, it stops them being isolated and it helps them to feel part of the community again.”
The team also create memory boxes and life-story books for residents, to stop precious memories being lost. Elaine says: “I did one for Joy and her stories were amazing, about how she was a dancer but then at 16 gave it up to have a family.
“She also told me about a school she went to and a sweet shop she used to go to, so I googled pictures of her old school, house and even the shop. It’s fantastic to be able to help keep these memories alive.”