Lifesize dolls for elderly residents

Well. Yes. Or actually, molded.

Still want one.

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!

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

Anneeba

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Yes MawBroonsBack I totally agree with you. There seem to be a lot of women in America who have reborn dolls that they treat like real babies and take them out with them shopping and in cafes, etc. where they carry on as if they are alive. It truly gives me the creeps. The husbands seem to go along with it, but maybe they are not really happy about it and only accept it because they think it helps their wives. I watched something on YouTube a couple of years ago and I found it disturbing. If someone has had a stillborn child or miscarriage and does not have any children, which is heartbreaking, then I think they need counselling not fake babies.

Is this the real life, Is this just fantasy...

If...and it's a big IF, I ever have to be 'looked after', I'd prefer a comfortably rotund, jolly, African American lady to care for me. One who can bake great cakes and buttered chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy and Portuguese tarts. No dolls.

SONIA

Welcome. And I agree

I don’t honestly believe that any of us can say what our preference will be when we are in a totally different state and place in life.

I think the life size dolls can offer residents a welcome change in their daily routine which can be incredibly boring.

SoniaLScott I would query whether these dolls would bring comfort to many and whether they are not the equivalent of dummies or pacifiers to save people actually addressing the whole problem of providing those in care homes with meaningful occupation.

As I pointed out in an earlier post. Many of those in care were, prior to going into care, bumbling around at home, cooking, cleaning, gardening, not efficiently or well, but active. Once they are in care they do nothing.

I was the responsible family member for an aunt and uncle both with dementia and I saw how there mental state declined rapidly in their first few months in care. Due, I am convinced, to the loss of meaningful occupation.

My aunt and uncle were childless, a deep sadness for them. My aunt had no experience of childcare and might well have found these 'babies' distressing.

M0nica

I agree with you on that. My mother in law, as you said, was bumbling around at home, quite dangerously though, and pretty quickly she deteriorated, even though the policy of the home, which was small, encouraged the residents to help with the day to day jobs.

Really, the people I think would benefit, are those who are really in the late stages, where they just sit, doze, watch a bit of television, doze again.

I promise you, those years of going back and forth to the home, were very sad, I’d never want to suggest something which would patronise them

Monica I wonder if you have anyone who is in the position of needing 24 hour care with conditions which include one or other of the dementias?

My mother could not, in my opinion, be anywhere better. There is plenty of "meaningful occupation" provided and care is personal to each of the residents. The home is extremely well run and while I can see the individual disappearing, the staff can see the individual that is there. They go out of their way to understand what has been their life in the past, what was important, and what they can talk about. There balance of offering care without taking away choice amazes me - I could not do it; I have too much balance of knowing mum as she was affecting me see so clearly who she is now. I did do it until last October but it was becoming detrimental to us both.

Would I want to be approaching my ninety ninth birthday sufficiently along the Alzheimer's road to need full-time care. No, I would rather be dead. But if I am, I don't think your view of care would necessarily be knowledgeable enough. I would feel, if I could join the dots enough to understand, lucky to be in the sort of small community where dolls, cats and lots of activity are available if I chose to take part but where more than that I could have kind, thoughtful care 24 hours a day from people who see me as an individual.

I worked for a while in a small nursing home about 30 years ago. The Matron was lovely and encouraged the residents with dementia to help fold the laundry , do a little dusting and preparing the vegetables . They were very happy doing small tasks . Then the owner of the home told her that relatives had complained that they were used as "skivvies" and the Matron had to stop . I know things have changed now with more insight into the care of people with dementia, but not sure about dolls . We should be encouraging more nurseries and schools to visit care homes and interact with the elderly like those wonderful programmes on TV a while ago .

GGMK3 see my two previous posts. I do indeed have experience of working with 2 elderly people with dementia, both when they were at home and when they were in care.

They were in a good (and expensive) care home, with lots of activities, but I feel meaningful activity, such as everyday tasks and care would be more useful.

Yes, there comes a time for many people with dementia when they are passed involvement - and I saw that with my relations - but i think it could have been delayed if they had had more opportunity to use their minds to continue to navigate their day to day life.

It should also be remembered that not all of those in care have dementia, another relations care was enhanced when after a couple of years a new resident with the same intellectual and musical tastes as his moved in. For about 9 months they shared good conversation about books and music and listened to Radio 3 together, then she died and he just retreated to his room for a few more years until he died.

Showed this to my 93yr old mother, she said “ lovely idea pet, do they make one of Aiden Turner” ?

My mother was due to go into a care home from sheltered housing but I can imagine what she would have said if someone had turned up with these things. First she would have criticised the knitting (she was a professional knitter into her 80s), suggesting that the wrong stitches had been used and finding any mistakes. Then she would have told the organisers that she didn't need dolls to make her remember things and actually she preferred talking about her family now.Then she would have regaled them with a long story about when she went to the French Riviera in the 1950s. They would probably thnk they'd done well helping her remember but any of her family would have told them this was her favourite story which she trotted out regularly. You see strangers sometimes think they are stimulating something, when they are just a new ear and really that is what most old people want some who will listen.

Trisher

But your mum is obviously still very alert

The sort of doll matters though. My mother liked a largish soft doll like you would give a baby. It's something to cuddle just a physical thing really it's not game of pretence.