A MEMORY support program helping residents with dementia introduced at Calvary’s aged care homes across Mornington Peninsula and bayside areas has won an award. The program, based on the Montessori approach by providing meaningful, tailored, small-group activities and support for residents living with dementia, won the healthcare provider’s national quality and safety Star award 2024.
Calvary Aged Care general manager Dana Ieraci said the memory support program tailored residents’ interests and past lives which was also improving clinical outcomes and more settled behaviours. “Dementia can impact memory, speech, cognition, personality, and mobility. Unfortunately, it can also affect behaviour,” Leraci said. “Having meaningful, purposeful activities in place tailored to what the residents enjoy provides them with a better quality of life, and in some cases has also led to significant improvements in clinical aspect.”
Among the program’s positive outcomes included a woman who had previously been quite frail, unsettled, and was neither not drinking or eating, and requiring extra support. “After about a month, she started eating and drinking independently, she was smiling, and had stopped being really distressed and anxious,” Leraci said. “The number of falls she was having reduced markedly and we could reduce the medications she was on. Her whole outlook and demeanour really changed.”
Kerry Taylor, a long-time care worker at Calvary Capel Sands, runs the memory support program for up to six residents each weekday. She gathers as much information as possible from the resident’s family and friends about their interests and personalities to cater for their program. This included putting a feather duster in the activity box of a woman who used to be a cleaner, with Taylor then leaving things lying around for her to tidy. Another resident was a former boilermaker who enjoyed dismantling and reassembling piping or nuts and bolts, or sanding timber ready for painting. Taylor also collected saddles for a retired farmer who took pride in brushing one for hours and conditioning the other with eucalyptus leather cream.
“I believe one of the most important things about memory support for people living with dementia is that people feel known, because when you feel known, you feel valued,” Taylor said. “Having purpose, finding meaning, being valued: the way it presents is different and individual, but we all have the same needs.” The program operates in six Calvary homes located between Rye and Brighton.
First published in the Mornington News – 17 December 2024
