We exercised
• This week saw us ‘marching into March’. We went up Snowdon for our big marches on St David’s Day and through woodlands, around tarns and up Lake District fells on the other days, looking out for Peter Rabbit and reciting Wordsworth’s poem ‘Daffodills’. As well as strengthening our heart, lungs and legs, this marching in different places helps to reawaken memories of past holidays, plant the seed of maybe taking Coach holidays to those venues in the future; and the chat and poetry reading enables dual tasking which is good for our brains and therefore co-ordination and balance.
We shared
• one gentleman brought in some cookies baked by his wife – he felt good contributing something and seeing our happy faces, we very much enjoyed the home cooking
• one lady brought in the Wiltshire Farm Food magazine with stacks of crossword puzzles, code words, word searches etc which I’m going to copy and distribute and there’s some lovely photos of dogs for our ladies who used to own dogs and very much miss them now
• I talked about my adventure at the local Friendship Club – hopefully this will encourage some more people to go along too
• one group of participants planned a lunch out together after one of the classes
We discussed
• one lady had just received a letter telling her that she had Alzheimers as well as vascular dementia. She didn’t really understand what this was about so I was able to give her a bit more information and let her know about some of the support available eg Alzheimers’ Society, the local Memory Cafe and Council Tax Reduction
• I have also been asked by another lady to write a letter for her to attach to her Blue Badge application
• one group at an independent living scheme now have their shovel so are all prepared for the cold weather forecast for next week. Although the maintenance team will grit paths Mondays to Fridays they won’t do this on weekends – as weather tends to appear on 7 days a week the ladies need their shovel for Saturdays and Sundays! The shovel had been ordered after we had discussed this at class one week and I notified the Neighbourhood Development officer/Scheme Co-ordinator. One of the benefits of seeing a group once a week is that not only are we able to keep an eye on how they’re doing health wise on an ongoing basis but it also provides an opportunity for a weekly chat amongst residents and, if issues arise, these can be relayed to the Neighbourhood Development Officer and Scheme Co-ordinators – I guess these regular conversations were taking place before the number of co-ordinators was cut and their jobs widened to cover more than one scheme, thus limiting the amount of time they can spend engaging with residents.
Quotes
• ‘This is why i come here – to laugh, to meet people, to keep me moving – much more difficult at home on my own’
Story
• One new (rather large) lady came in, sat down and then promptly told me that her problem was getting up from a chair – the last time she had seen the gentleman next to her had been in a cafe and she hadn’t been able to stand up – she’d thought she was going to have stay sitting down for ever. Sure enough when it came to the Sit to Stand exercise, she struggled to stand up so we concentrated on her just gently lifting her bottom off the chair and down. …….But…..at the end of the class she stood up from the chair on her own – we all had the biggest smiles on our faces!
Self referrals
• I was talking to a GP about self referrals – she said that she would much rather her patients contact me direct to book a place on the classes after seeing the leaflet rather than having to book an appointment with her to get her to make a referral, first because it saves her time and allows her to see another patient; and secondly because it enables the patient to take responsibility for their health care
What will today bring?!!!
