Race Against Dementia Day
Tomorrow (21 January) is Race Against Dementia Day which aims to raise money to fund innovative dementia research.
Race Against Dementia is a global charity founded by Formula 1 champion Sir Jackie Stewart OBE after his wide Jackie was diagnosed with Dementia at the age of 54.
Today 55 million people around the world live with dementia and a new person develops it every three seconds.
EPUT has dedicated Dementia services, including a multi-disciplinary Dementia Intensive Support Team (DIST), who provide intensive support to patients of all ages with dementia and older people with a mental health diagnosis to prevent hospital admissions.
Last year the Trust, which also has two Dementia care homes, was rated one of the top 15 providers in England for dementia-friendly care by its own patients during a review.
The Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) review took place across 760 Beds, 44 Wards and 18 inpatient units across the trust. They involved local people (known as Patient Assessors) analysing how NHS organisations supported the provision of clinical care, assessing such things as privacy and dignity, food, cleanliness, and general building maintenance and, more recently, the extent to which the environment can support the care of those with dementia.
The PLACE assessments take place every year, and results are published to help drive improvements in the care environment. The results show how hospitals are performing both nationally and in relation to other hospitals providing similar services.
The Trust’s care homes, Clifton Lodge in Westcliff and Rawreth Court in Rayleigh, specialise in providing care tailored to the specific needs of people living with dementia.
The Care homes host regular activities for its patients, including live music, tea parties and entertainment as well as pet therapy sessions.
The care homes also use RemPods which are pop-up rooms that transform clinical spaces into scenes that help patients stimulate memories and conversation with loved ones around parts of their memory they retain. Clifton Lodge has three RemPods which are permanently set up and have proven very popular with the patients. The most popular Rempod is set up in the activity room and has a garden shed theme.
Sandie Woolford, activities coordinator at Clifton Lodge, said: “The garden shed Rempod is our most popular and the residents talk about it all the time.
“In front of it is a three tier wooden shelving unit which has an assortment of items on it including sensory CDs and air scents relating to the different discs which are played. There is also a garden box which has small garden tools and extra sensory items which encourage the residents to talk about what they used to do in their own gardens.”