Lifesize dolls for elderly residents

Monica. darling girl, I know what you are saying and the rage one feels st the patronage, but the important thing at this stage of life is comfort, I would condone most things to deliver this to anyone. This is my first post on Gransnet xxx

Gracesgran

No it’s not the same for everyone, I can think of one woman in my mother in laws home, who would probably have chucked it at me!

The home my mother in law moved into, was in the village we live in, so somebody was always popping in and out, and as I said, the residents would be grabbing at the baby, trying to give her biscuits, and I just thought they needed something to care for.

They were all quite advanced with their dementia, incapable of conversation, dozing what was left of their lives away, but when they saw the baby, they were suddenly alert and excited, I didn’t think of it at the time, but I would have loved to have seen them with their own baby to cuddle

Those adult figures are horrific!

As a child in the 50's I frequently went with Gran to visit her older sister.
Aunt J was cared for at home by her (2 unmarried) daughters. One stopped working to look after her and the other carried on to bring in an income.

My memory of her is that she was happily tucked up in bed with her 'baby'.
She enjoyed the visits of us little people and encouraged us to cuddle the baby.

I had no idea why this was so but she was such a contented and lovely old lady that it didn't cross my mind to worry or even ask about it.

On a New Year's Day visit she was caught feeding her advocaat snowball treat to my 2year-old sister, insisting that eggs were good for wee ones!

A happy lady with dementia, lovingly looked after in her family home.

Get them up get them helping in the garden, helping with domestic tasks, laying and clearing tables, washing up etc

Use them as unpaid skivvies under the guise of therapy?

How is that less patronising than dolls and knitting?

And no one in the care homes I've worked in ever sniggered about the people they cared for, whatever they did.

But it is true that each person with dementia has different needs and if they are comforted by dolls, fluffy toys dogs and cats, or even real ones, then fine. The whole ethos of dementia care is that second word.

In my mother's home they have some little boy and little girl dementia empathy dolls but they are not like real babies. They are more like the first two on this page: www.bing.com/images/search?q=dementia+dolls&id=AD5F0FFA7A2DACAC302C43C3CB22677C3F01F4B7&FORM=IQFRBA

Mum really liked them when she first moved in but she has travelled a little more down the dementia road and doesn't go to the lounge now and isn't that interested if I bring the into her room. They also have a cat that purrs when you stroke it and sort of moves under your hand, meows etc. It is very lifelike and very much loved by some of the residents. Mum hated it from the beginning. She had cats all her life and didn't get anything from it. It is like this one. www.amazon.co.uk/Memorable-Pets-Robotic-Reclining-Silver/dp/B073H9QNDL/ref=sr_1_4?s=gateway&keywords=dementia+cat&hvdev=t&hvadid=80401820243939&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&tag=gransnetforum-21&qid=1564340813&sr=8-4

I think adult dolls would terrify her. She has one teddy who she has imbued with the comfort Dad gave her. When she talks about the Teddy and that Dad gave him to her (he didn't) you can see how comforting he is. He is always with her and everyone asks after him. It can be a sad, confusing and frightening world when you have dementia so anything that soothes and comforts is okay by me but it is not the same for everyone.

Last year I bought a toy monkey which was very cuddly and about as big/small as a small puppy.
I was taking it to a friend's daughter who had broken her ankle and was off school.

On the way there I stopped to buy some fruit and tucked the monkey under my arm while rooting for my purse.
It stayed there after I left and so I walked with monkey in left crook and rucksack over right shoulder.

I thought nothing of it until, after arriving at my destination and handing over the toy, I felt strangely bereft.

It reminded me of all the carrying of children I did during my mummy years...sadly now in the mists of memory.

Quite comforting really.

Anneeba

preferring her muff wow!
I spluttered at that. ?????

My grandchildren have them, and I can’t resist picking them up and cuddling them

From what I've read in the BBC article, these dolls are to provoke discussion rather than be cuddled or used as comforters. It must be quite difficult for residents in homes to find topics to talk about when their worlds have shrunk so very much so on a use-it-or-lose-it basis, anything that encourages talking must be good.

The models wouldn't be of much interest to my friend's dh with dementia, though. He's far from child-like, thinking he's a young man who has just graduated from university. He says he's looking for a job!

Well. Yes. Or actually, molded.

Still want one.

Why are they called, 'reborn'?

Is it a euphemism for stuffed?

I quite want a reborn baby doll anyway. A really pretty one. So it would be alright for me.

narrowboatnan. Me too. My mind boggled when I read the title.
I think the adult size dolls are horrible and can't see a purpose.
I have heard of people with dementia loving dolls to care for like babies, but it's up to the individual.
A brilliant suggestion from M0nica though but and it's a big but, as said by grannybuy, there's not enough staffing as it is and they don't have the time other than being cares.
I'm a volunteer in an elderly residential care home, each have their own flat. We have an activities manager and there are also male and female volunteers who go in and chat, play cards, dominoes, crib, bingo and quizzes Without volunteers it would be a very long day for some as many have problems with mobility, some with dementia.
M0nica, we have volunteer residents that like to have a responsibility.
One lady run's the shop on a Wednesday, does raffles. A gentleman is so proud that he feeds the fish. Places the cutlery on the dining tables. Another fills the salt and pepper pots whether they want topping up or not.
There are volunteer gardeners. On a Monday afternoon there are three retired ladies who run 'The Monday Club' for two hours that provide mind stimulating activities and creativity. .They make cards, last week made such beautiful flower arrangements and the list goes on.
In a perfect world, if only all homes could be like this.
I must point out that this is a care home not a nursing home . There is a difference in the health and ability of residents.
It's so very sad to see, as some of us have, elderly people often with the last stages of dementia in nursing homes that have very few visitors, often no one. They just sit in chairs around a room.
Maybe a baby doll can give comfort and companionship. but most of all if only there were enough volunteers just to sit, talk and hold a hand if just for an hour.
Our manager always says that it doesn't matter if someone can only give 15 minutes, you've brightened someone's day.

Personally I find reborn dolls creepy and don’t like my DGD’s. But if anybody takes comfort in one or a stuffed cat or dog, or a real cat or dog that’s fine surely? Everybody is an individual and should be treated as one whether they have dementia or not.

One of my granddaughters friends had one of these “reborn” life like baby dolls, it was exquisite, weighted and smelt of baby powder. Having always been a sucker for a new baby I was rather taken with it ?
So I think that if someone has always liked babies then it could be a very useful item to have and possibly be a calming relaxing experience for a dementia sufferer.

But you wouldn’t be you, I admit I have absolutely no professional knowledge, I only know what I observed over several years of visiting, and I feel you have to let the patient take the lead. I may be wrong, but I don’t feel I am

I agree with MOnica and Minimoo I would like to be treated as an an adult coming to the end of a full life if ever I was in a residential home.

I get that, but they have often reverted to childhood, and if that’s a place they are happy that’s alright isn’t it? With my mother in law, we just went with the flow, she was often at different stages of her life, and we were different people, I can’t see anything wrong in letting the patient be where they are happiest, and if that’s childhood, so be it

They most certainly are not like children. This attitude drives me mad. My sister used to talk and treat our mother as if she were a toddler. People with dementia are not like children at all. They are adults who have all lived and still might have stories to tell. But to say they are like children is rude and unnecessary.

When my father was in a care home, a cat came regularly to visit if, and only if, it had been made welcome the first time.

If residents didn't care for cats, all they had to do was say, "Shoo!" and it left.

It transpired it was the local clergyman's cat that seemed to have fathomed some of what is meant by pastoral care.

narrowboatnan. Exactly what I thought! ?

No they are not.

Lindak

But they are like children

I can only go by how I saw dementia patients reacting to a baby, and also in this home they did have a couple of cats, I’m sure these old ladies would have loved something to cuddle, but I’m definitely not talking about people without dementia, I agree that would be horribly patronising

Is that not like treating them like children