Care Homes and Living Life

These past few weeks I’ve been thinking about how the natural rhythms of our lives have been interrupted by COVID-19. In particular, how the rhythms of care homes have changed or been disrupted. Interrupting our habits and routines isn’t always a bad thing as it can be good to break from the norm. It can help us to look with fresh eyes on the 'taken for granted'. One of the positives we can take from this unprecedented year is that as care organisations we can shine a light on the purpose of care homes as homes, and help others to see these important spaces from this perspective: the perspective of the person who lives there.

If we truly think about the care home as the person’s home what would this change about what we do and how we reframe our own role in care home spaces?

The concept of home, as a place of belonging, is complicated when thinking about how a person with dementia might feel or experiences a move into a care home. We don't always take time to find out or sometimes when communication has been interrupted, even know how to find out. People with dementia seldom choose to move to a care home. It is often as a result of circumstances and the need for care. During this time many people have moved quickly to new care settings. Care homes routines have had to focus on the priority of COVID-19. When infection prevention and control is so important it is easy to see how we can lose sight of the value of home and the perspective of the resident. Care homes are also places of work and have to support the needs of their employees too.

Anchor Points and Bump Spaces

Care homes, when they are designed well, are able to cater for personal and work spaces without care feeling intrusive to the person who lives there. The latest World Alzheimer Report 2020 shows us examples where this works well. Care homes also have two things that I talk about as being important to promote resilience. These are anchor points and bump spaces. Anchor points help us to make sense of the spaces we are in. The function of rooms is clear. The person can recognise the spaces which are their own private space. Bump points are natural meeting spaces which can be found in the care home to facilitate moments of reciprocity between the people who live there, and between the people who work and live there. These are the simple 'Good Mornings' we exchange where people know they belong and have value. These spaces are built but are also social. They are built through a combination of enabling design and are brought to life by the values of the people who work there. The impact of COVID-19 on care homes has been a more clinical focus through policy measures and restricted family life, which has impacted on anchors and bumps. Environments have changed as spaces have been re-designated. The natural meeting times and spaces in care settings have been removed due to social distancing and the wearing of PPE. In order to help us think about this and the impact on the sense of 'home', Dementia Support UK (HammondCare) have a guided walkthrough to help experience the environment from the perspective of living life in a care setting with an emphasis on the everyday rhythms. If you would like to know more about this or to access the guide then please contact us. Life is after all a series of everyday moments. There has never been a more important time to remember this than now.