As my mother’s dementia progressed after living in a care home fairly well for a few years, it was important that the care home were able to continue to communicate with her emotionally through Validation approaches and also to include her in decisions. This was the beginning of the journey of learning about Talking Mats ™ which was later developed to accompany a whole system of quality assessment of the care experience involving more people with dementia more meaningfully.
Hearing the voice of the person is a key driver for the quality improvement work for culture change . Involving people more meaningfully creates a more empathetic person centred and relationship, essential for relationship-centred care, focused on delivery of person centred outcomes. It gives tools to enable and equip staff to do a good job when give the time to deliver good dementia care, a key cause of attrition in care homes.
LISTENING to the voice of the person with dementia is often overlooked in reviewing quality of a service and finding out what matters for care planning engagement. It is frequently assumed that the person cannot answer questions, so instead observation rather than listening is the preferred method of mapping quality care for this group or using an advocate. This is all good and proper, but there are people who fall between the cracks, who can do more if given the right approach and conditions.
As a trustee of the Relatives & Residents Association for many years we heard so many stories of people who felt excluded as staff did not have the right tools for the job that is getting ever more specialist. The job satisfaction from connecting meaningfully and helping someone feel understood and listened to is worth its weight in gold.
Many people at the moderate stages of dementia can relate well if they are given the right verbal and visual prompts. Talking Mats method is the best available. Ask & Answer cards with guided interviews using an evidence-based question methods take people through the topics that matter to them in the here and now.
The right prompts helps INVOLVEMENT which was so important for my mother. This meant she could tell us about what matter to her most and we could adapt the care accordingly. The enjoyment of using pictures to supplement or replace words is simple and effective way of involvement.