meaningful activities
Research question: Can personally-tailored activities improve the wellbeing of care home residents living with dementia?
Context: Staff at Seacroft Grange asked if there was evidence of interventions to promote wellbeing in care home residents with dementia. Our starting point was:
- People with dementia who live in care homes often have little to do which is meaningful to them
- For activities to be meaningful they should match the interests of the person with dementia
- Having the opportunity to take part in meaningful activities may promote wellbeing by reducing the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia and improving a resident’s quality of life
- Tailored activities can take many forms: delivered by care staff or external providers and include group or one to one activities.
Summary of Research
A systematic review brought together findings from eight studies which tested whether a personally tailored activity improved care and outcomes for residents. These studies compared the tailored activities to care as usual, i.e. residents doing the same things they usually do, or activities that were not personally tailored for them. The studies were conducted in nursing homes and with 957 residents from the USA, Australia and the UK. Most studies were from the USA.
The systematic review included studies that recorded residents’ interests or preferences for activities, and the way that activities were tailored to a resident’s interests. Studies looked at different aspects of wellbeing: improving quality of life, mood and engagement or reducing agitation.
Summary of Findings:
- Care home residents with dementia can benefit from taking part in activities which suit their interests (called personally tailored activities).
- Offering personally tailored activities can improve challenging behaviour. Other aspects of wellbeing like mood and happiness might also improve, but the research is less certain.
- Research into personally tailored activities is generally poor quality.
- Providing any activity seems to benefit residents.
- Activities need to be provided frequently.
- Simple, one-to-one social contact and activities involving food and/or drink are most engaging for resident
Detailed findings can be downloaded here
contact: r.devi@leeds.ac.uk
Our care home partner: Springfield Healthcare has over 50 years’ experience in delivering care services to the people of Yorkshire and beyond. Beginning with a family owned care home in Garforth, West Yorkshire in 1967, they now have 250 registered care beds in Leeds across 3 sites.
We worked specifically with their team at Seacroft Grange.