Dementia Support has been helping long term care facilities transform their CHALLENGING dementia units into LIFE FILLED Montessori units.
Dementia Support will teach your staff how to engage many residents at one time and keep them busy for lengthy periods of time. This will change the dynamics of the LTC units in many ways. Naturally the residents will be busy doing various activities according to each person’s interests. When a person with dementia exerts their energy in a natural way, we see they are calmer, more satisfied with various accomplishments (simple ones at that), less combative, have less of a need for constant attention and are overall happier. Something even more interesting happens when residents are engaged in this way. The employees of the facility are happier and less stressed. Their interaction with the residents are more positive and meaningful not to mention that the staff will have the time to accomplish other tasks while the residents are keeping busy. You may say to yourself this sounds like a dream but it’s not, it’s very real and we have seen it happen over and over again at many facilities that have brought us in to train their staff.
How is this done?
Dementia Support will come onsite and train your staff in 5 hours on how to implement a Montessori Approach in your facility. We will teach your staff how to keep many residents busy at one time using Montessori Activities. We will train your programming staff how to keep more residents busy during programming time and will also teach your PSWs (personal support workers) how to keep residents busy and involved in real life activities outside of programming times including sundowning hours and night time.
What will you need?
In order to be successful in implementing this very easy approach, you will need two things:
1. To schedule a Montessori Training Session
2. LOTS of Montessori Activities.
It’s a good thing we are able to provide both. Our training is dynamic, practical, interactive and straight to the point. Your staff will be ready to implement right after the training. Our Montessori Kits are designed to keep many people busy at one time. One kit includes over 55 ways to engage your residents in real life activities. The type of activities that are included in the kits are things that people would do every day in their life and homes, activities that use your mind (yes, people with dementia can still use their mind), some activities have social and cultural elements to them and others are meant to be individual. Each activity is plentiful which ensures longer engagement. They are designed to be visually appealing and have visual cues so that the resident can engage and re-engage on their own or with a quick walk-by assistance.
When we train your staff, we use the actual activities in the kits you purchased so that the staff is familiar with each item and feels comfortable using them. During the training a hands on lab is set up so that the staff can practice using the tools they just learned.
To schedule a training and or order Montessori Kits, please contact us at 416-638-8600 or info@nulldementiasupport.ca
