Person Centred Care
You may have heard of this when you started looking into care models. Put simply its one of the greatest steps forward in the concept of care and like all brilliant models its wonderfully simple.
Traditionally, the role of a carer was task driven with a lengthy list of daily actions he or she was required to perform on every resident and logging this information on the residents care plans as each was performed.
Now in itself this is not necessarily a bad practice, but it assumes every resident has the same needs, is in the same mood, shares the same values and is happy to fit into the routine of the carer.
Person centred care breaks this mould and sees every resident as a unique individual with their own dreams and aspirations, their own experiences and histories. It no longer conforms to a one size fits all model as residents choose when to wake up and when to go sleep. They choose their meal times, what they eat, activities they do, if they spend their time inside the home or outside, if they partake in organised activites by the home or if they want some ‘me’ time in their own room. You get the picture.
Now this is obviously easy when someone can just tell you their preference, but you may feel this is not possible for residents with memory loss or lack the ability to communicate.
At Manor House we take a different approach and by using therapies such as Life History Work and Reminiscence Therapy we try to understand personal preferences, rituals and beliefs to build fun and loving relationships. We do not see behaviour as challenging but as a form of communication. Staff are trained in the importance of understanding and identifying the causes of distressed behaviour. The focus of care is around adapting to individual circumstances. In effect understanding behaviour is more successful than trying to control it.