Sylvia Thompson looks at how an arts in care programme helps patients and carers get the most from life
'I saw all these people sitting in armchairs lined around the walls of big rooms. There was often a television high up in the corner and no interaction between them. At first, I wondered how we would work together."
These were the stark first impressions of drama facilitator, Elly McCrea when she visited public nursing homes while embarking on the innovative art in care settings courses she has been running for the past five years through Age and Opportunity.
Creating opportunities for staff in public nursing homes to improve the quality of life for residents has been the focus of the work. The ultimate aim is to help nurses and care assistants see how subtle changes in the way they do things can make a huge difference, resulting in more genuine human contact between patients and other patients and patients and staff alike. Approximately 40 staff members in nine residential homes for older people in the midlands have been trained to date.
"A lot of people adopt the attitude 'I had a past but I don't have a future', so it can take a while to involve them in creative activities but once we started, it was lovely to see them leave their armchairs and slowly get into what we were doing, asking us when we were coming back. It brought people into the present, gave some meaning to their lives and helped them look forward to the future," says McCrea.
As part of their training, the nurses and care assistants experienced what it is like to have sensory impairments such as being hard of hearing or being partially sighted through role play exercises. For instance, they took turns being led around the hospital while wearing a blindfold or being fed a meal by another member of staff.
"The sensory deprivation exercises had a big impact and we got great feedback from staff members who said things like 'I felt you were putting a spade in my mouth' or 'I liked the way you talked to me, encouraged me and gave me space' or 'you were so controlling and overpowering that I felt like a puppet'," says McCrea.
"Staff members said afterwards, now, I will be much more aware of feeding people and the impact it has on them. People learn much more through this kind of experiential work than from what you tell them. They also learn to be more confident in themselves and ask for meetings to talk about what they need in their workplace," says McCrea.
The courses McCrea runs with visual artist and fellow Dutchwoman, Gerda Teljeur also involved the staff members learning to get in touch with their own creativity.
"Once they did this, they began to see opportunities for change, so they would do simple things like bringing people outside if it was sunny, bringing male and female residents who came from the same communities together for coffee in the day room, give the residents opportunities to have foot or hand massage," says McCrea.
Since McCrea and Teljeur completed the training modules in the residential homes for older people, fulltime posts have been created for activity co-ordinators in some residential settings.
"The arts in care course was the most beneficial course I ever took in terms of caring for our residents' well-being.
"Now each resident has an activity-care plan as well as a healthcare plan. It makes a difference to the whole atmosphere when from the director of nursing down, there is an awareness of the value of this kind of work," says Maura Byrne, activities co-ordinator, St Brigid's Hospital, Shaen, Portlaoise, Co Laois.
McCrea is also enthusiastic about the initiatives that have sprung from the courses. "Some staff members have set up poetry groups. Others sit with bed bound patients, documenting their stories as they tell them. Others have made sensory boxes for patients to include things like family photos, their favourite music and things they like to touch and smell," she says.
Ann Leahy from Age and Opportunity says: "With the current restructuring within the Health Service Executive (HSE), it is timely now for the course to reach care settings all around the country and we are hoping that the HSE will commit to collaborating with us on this. "
McCrea adds: "People who live in care have to give up so many of the everyday things that have sustained them in their lives. If they choose, residents ought to be able to enter a new phase in which they experience the satisfaction of living creatively.
"Ultimately, I would like to see us as a society reframing our ideas about residential care centres to where they become known as centres of creative living."
Elly McCrea is the author of Elly's Onion, a beginners drama-in-education guide for teachers and care workers (iapce) €19.99.