How boisterous 4-year-olds could transform Britain’s care homes
. . . as proved by the tears and laughter in an emotion-wrenching TV experiment
Grumpy old man? The phrase could have been invented to describe 88-year-old Hamish, a retired insurance manager who is spending the final chapter of his life in a retirement home in Bristol. Or in ‘God’s waiting room’, as one of his fellow residents puts it. Hamish doesn’t seem entirely chuffed to be taking part in a potentially ground-breaking Channel 4 documentary, which involves opening the doors of this retirement home to some new residents — all aged four. His face suggests it’s all rather ridiculous, and an unwelcome interruption to his attempt to read a newspaper.
‘I’m curious to find out what the children are going to learn from older people,’ he concedes. ‘One wonders what on earth the adults are going to be doing with these children. But it really isn’t possible for me to be actively engaged.’
He signals to his prosthetic leg. ‘I’m not really able to get down on my hands and knees and play games with them. One can’t run about and play football.’
Then he retires behind his paper again, and the outcome of this experiment — an attempt to see if the lives of older people can be improved by contact with the young — seems set. Or it does until a persistent little voice declares: ‘I’m making you a cup of tea.’
What an extraordinary piece of television Old people’s Home For 4 year Olds is.
Often programmes billed as social experiments are a let-down, a mishmash of cod psychology and pseudo-science. This one has something that elevates it to a different level: the knowledge that, in our twilight years, any of us could be in the position of these residents — alone, lonely, waiting to die, and as far removed from vibrant youth as it is possible to be.
The two-part programme has a simple premise. Ten elderly volunteers, all residents of the St monica Trust retirement home, are introduced to ten lively pre-schoolers who shift their nursery into the retirement home for six weeks.
Every day, the two groups — old and young — spend time together, and do tasks aimed at fostering a relationship between them. The goal? To discover if the health (physical and mental) of older people might be improved by such an association. In short, will the oldies get younger?
THEidea that there are myriad health benefits from this sort of intergenerational approach is not a new one. In the u.S. and Japan there is a growing movement to combine nursery daycare with retirement care.
At the Intergenerational Learning Centre in Seattle, the very young and very old have been rubbing shoulders for years. There is now a two-year waiting list for children to access this daycare. They do music, dancing and art projects alongside what are effectively adoptive grandparents and great-grandparents.
Now the idea is being implemented in the uK — with the mission of proving it works.
We’ve been given access to the first programme, and it provides food for thought about how we treat our old — and our young.
Along with the TV cameras come an army of experts: doctors, psychologists and physios who are charged with assessing the health of the elderly residents at the start of the project, and again at the end of the six-week stint.
They watch remotely as the two sets get to know each other, and monitor the effect it is having on the older folk.
The most striking thing about the programme is the light it shines on how lonely old age can be. While St monica’s seems like a fairytale fantasy of a retirement home, akin to a stately home set in vast grounds — it quickly emerges that the residents aren’t necessarily happy here.
Initial assessments are quite shocking. A third of the volunteers show signs of depression. A staggering nine out of ten of them say they find life dull. All but one are assessed as being in poor health physically, and are at risk of falling.
Hamish harrumphs away the ‘balance test’ — which establishes how long the volunteers can stand on one foot — insisting that he can’t do it.
mary, an 86-year- old retired teacher, is asked how long she has lived in the home. ‘I’ve been told 11 years but I don’t remember.’ How does she fill her days? ‘I go to sleep. That gets rid of the loneliness.’ Her answer to whether she is satisfied with her life is piercing. ‘I’m going to die,’ she says. ‘Quite soon, actually.’
The retirees are lovely, but their situation seems bleak. professor malcolm Johnson, a gerontologist at the university of Bath who oversees the trial, sums up the problem. ‘Living with people whose lives have become containers of a multitude of losses — it’s not always fun.’
Can this rather pitiful state of affairs be reversed, however? Well, enter the children. Their arrival is joyous. They come marching down the corridor, arms swinging, singing If you’re Happy And you Know It.
The older folk hear them coming from a mile away. Their tranquillity is about to be ripped apart. ‘ I’m Nelson and I’m four,’ announces the first cheeky bundle of energy. How much do these children know about old people, though? One girl, Eva, is asked what happens when you are old. ‘I think you go in a bungalow,’ she replies.
Some of the older residents are immediately charmed. Others less so. Hamish’s face is a picture of annoyance when he gets dragged into an exercise which involves making name tags.
What quickly becomes obvious is that there is little option but for these retirees to become involved with the children.
Books are hurled onto laps as they demand stories, and gnarled hands are grabbed. A little girl called millie pokes Hamish’s prosthetic leg and declares it ‘spongy’.
He is almost forced into an explanation of how he came to lose it — he was hit by a lorry as a teenager. One senses he isn’t the sort to normally volunteer such information.
His young charge is charmed. ‘my favourite person is Hamish,’ she declares after their conversation. ‘ One day he might have his leg back.’
Obviously there are ‘ props’ to encourage the vital interaction between the groups. Key is a bank of incubators which are brought into the day room. They contain duck eggs. Or ‘new life’, as professor Johnson says.
This sort of shared experience is a way, he says, of ‘creating engagement and exchange’. Both groups huddle round, with the older residents explaining to the little ones how the ducklings will eventually peck their way out. As the days pass, it is hard to tell who is more excited. When the fluffy ducklings eventually emerge, even hardened Hamish seems about to cry.
‘It was fascinating to see their
little webbed feet,’ he exclaims. ‘ These days I don’t really see anything new. This was a morning of sheer delight.’
The data gathering goes on all the time. The oldies are quizzed regularly on how they are feeling. Their fitness and activity levels are tested. They are made to wear monitors that track their steps, and how they are sleeping.
They are oblivious to much of this, however, because they are simply too busy singing Baa, Baa, Black Sheep or learning how to high five.
David, 89, is actually the 11th retiree. He wasn’t part of the original line-up but joined in when he watched from afar and decided he wanted to be a part of it.
A retired geologist whose expeditions once took him to the Arctic (‘David Attenborough stuff’), he is now the most inactive member of the group, unable to walk any distance.
Once his world revolved around his wife Nancy (‘everything a chap could look for and want. She loved all the things I loved. Eventually I got her to love me, which was the best thing I ever did’) but since her death following a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease, he has been alone. What an astonishing amount he has to offer a child, though, with all his tales of polar bears and wolves.
One day, as part of an activity designed to get the older people moving, he is partnered with little Eva for a stroll.
When he says he must sit down and rest, she urges him to walk further.
He tells her about the birds and the trees, and returns to the main house with a huge grin on his face, a man rejuvenated.
‘ It’s not just walking, it’s exploring,’ he says of their little adventure. ‘I’ve rather lost my heart to Eva. She’s a real poppet.’ It’s heart- breaking and soulsoaring all at once.
Monica, 85, is asked on camera how she felt when a little boy ran into the room and almost flattened her by throwing himself into her arms. ‘I didn’t mind it at all. I quite liked it,’ she says.
One of the experts says these retirees often haven’t had physical contact with anyone for years. ‘It’s the sort of thing they don’t realise they have missed,’ she adds.
There is growing evidence that everyone benefits from this sort of interaction, and the news probably won’t come as a surprise to any grandparent who is lucky enough Young at heart: Cheeky Noah and Millie bundle onto Pat’s lap. Below left, Hamish, 88, enjoys a tea party, and below right, Eva draws with Sheila, 84 to have small children in their lives — and on their lap.
Academic studies show children become more articulate and confident if they are used to being in the company of older adults.
Certainly the parents of the children involved in this experiment seem delighted with how things panned out.
‘Eva made a very special connection with David,’ said the little girl’s mum Sophie Alker. ‘She was confident before, but I think she’s even more confident now. You can take her anywhere and she’ll bowl up to anyone and chat. I think it’s a great idea for both of them. I’d love to see it rolled out at care homes across the country.’
That’s a message echoed by the experts involved.
Dr ZOE WYrKO, consultant geriatrician at University Hospital Birmingham, who watched the bonds develop, says that as a society we must take steps to embrace the idea.
‘I can’t understand why the UK has been so slow about doing this,’ she says. ‘It is really common in the U.S and intergenerationality is vital. Older people say they feel better when there are younger people around.’
There won’t be hard scientific fact that this project has worked until the end of the second episode, once all the data has been gathered, but the oldies themselves seem in no doubt that their lives have been turned around.
By the end of week three, Hamish is not only engaging with the kids, but lying on the floor in the middle of them, playing a game of Sleeping Lions. His health issues seem forgotten, at least momentarily.
Two ladies called Sheila, 84 and Lorna, 92, have perfected the art of high-fiving, and proudly show off their new skills for the cameras.
But perhaps the most moving response comes from a lady called Zena, 77, who seemed so locked in her own unhappiness at the start. Dutch-born Zena was once a keen mountain walker, but had lost her sense of adventure when her husband, who is also a resident, was diagnosed with dementia.
She was assessed as the most depressed member of the group. Three weeks in, and her smile is wide (scientifically proven too; one of the tests involves facial tracking technology which assesses what the residents’ expressions tell us). Why? She thinks she has discovered the secret.
‘The most important thing in life is to be loved, and children have such a pure and positive love,’ she says. ‘ To find a child’s hand in yours is one of the most moving things that can happen to you.’
Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds is on Channel 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday at 9pm.