FabSwingers.com forum: Care homes and life

By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

As you know I work in a care home, doing activities for my residents and one thing I do now is living stories with them when they first come in.

What is a living story? Basically it’s questions from when they were younger, siblings, school, jobs etc, up until today.

Why is this important: because some residents come into a home at the early stages of living with dementia, these questions can be vital to us as care staff for when our residents might not be verbal anymore, they allow us to talk about their past. Some residents don’t have families that come in regularly or at all in some cases, having these stories in place helps us keep their memories in place for just that little bit longer. It also helps me to understand hobbies etc they used to do and I can plan activities around them.

I went to a funeral recently of one of my residents and I learnt so much, I knew her as a lady that called out for help constantly and I saw her as this old lady that was, for want of a better word, annoying but hearing her son talk about his mum with such joy made me realise that these living stories must be done because had I have completed one with the family or the lady herself when she first came in (I’ve been there less than a year and she was there for three) my job would have been easier, I would have understood her more and would have been able to talk about her past.

Please don’t wait until your standing up when your loved one has gone delivering the eulogy, for us working in care homes it’s too late to try and make your loved ones last years better and happy, if only for a moment a day.

Sorry for the long post.

Geeky x