The pub club Rivers View returned to Riversway last week and our residents were delighted!

We all had fun playing games, listening to music, having a chat and enjoying a couple of drinks and eating some snacks.

It was a great afternoon and we even had some in-house entertainment.

One of our gentlemen played the spoons and the drums, and everyone agreed that they'd had a fun time!

At Riversway Nursing Home we are holding a Raising Dementia Awareness month in March 2019.

All of our staff going through induction will start having basic Dementia Awareness training, this will be supplemented by Level 1* Dementia Awareness training for all staff within the first year.

In March we will start to train the nurses, managers and other key people within the home in Level 2* Dementia Awareness training. This will entail looking at:

• the differences between depression, delirium and dementia;
• bio-psycho-social models for good dementia care;
• pain and pain tools
• medication and poly-pharmacy
• legislation and other drivers
• meaning of Distressed Reaction and treatment strategies
• person-centred care and relationship-centred care practices
• the importance of friends and family
• meaningful activity

Some of you might recognise that these subjects are covered in Springhill Care’s Dementia Champion training. This is indeed so, but the Dementia Champions cover them in more depth and also do a presentation of a case study about working with a resident who has dementia and their family.

After the level 2 training has taken place the 3 new team leaders at Riversway, Sian, Kiri and Megan, and other skilled carers within Riversway will be undertaking the new Dementia Champion training.

We are also starting to offer Dementia Awareness sessions for our outside community contacts such as volunteers at Riversway as well as offering this to local shops and churches.

Other projects happening during Riversway’s Raising Dementia Awareness month will be our regular Forget Me Not Cafe which will run alongside Dementia UK’s fundraiser Time for a Cuppa. Come and join us to raise money for this great charity.

by Jakki Whitehead, Admiral Nurse

* According to Department of Health (2015). Dementia Core Skills Education and Training Framework.

Art and craft sessions are very popular at Riversway Nursing Home and we recently had lots of fun painting cut out tea-pots, cupcakes and rocks with a selection of acrylic paints.

After deciding on a teapot and rock pattern and also the colour of our favourite cupcake, we got on with painting them all,  we then left them to dry before having a break to enjoying a nice cup of tea and a selection of biscuits, after a productive afternoon our ladies and gentlemen had certainly earned it.

It was a very fun and creative activity with lots of chatter – now what can we paint next!

 To view more photos on our Facebook page click HERE

Riversway Nursing Home has invented ‘Deals on Wheels’ a new little mobile shop that will tour around the home.

Every Wednesday afternoon you will find our ‘Deals on wheels’ shop selling all kinds of toiletries and goodies for our ladies and gentlemen to choose from.

Everyone at Riversway loved the fun little mobile shop and it was hailed a great success. It helps us ensure that everyone has all the daily essentials they need, and I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s nice to do a bit of shopping now and again.

What a great idea, well done team Riversway!