Bristol House Memory Care understands the importance of residents to stay focused and free from agitation long enough for residents to receive adequate nutrition while ensuring a positive dining experience.
Bristol House Memory Care dining experience is built on the focus of the residents needs and abilities to allow to succeed with the surrounding’s in dining room. This is what makes Bristol House Memory Care so successful with dining experiences. Here are some keys to Bristol House Memory Care dining experiences.
Atmosphere is built with the understanding of soft music in the background and controlling loud sounds because residents with dementia and Alzheimer’s doesn’t like major sound change and could affect their Sensitivity. This could cause behavior change and not allow them to get the full dining experience. The staff also knows that they have to get the residents to the dining space and makes it easier for residents not to forget their meal times. Bristol House Memory Care makes sure residents can see the food Menu’s with large letters and staff can explain what is on the menu for the food choices of the daily menu. Keeping things simple is helpful for residents and that is by giving the residents just what they need from utensils and things of that nature, because to busy is wrong approach to our residents here. What the eat with is also important to increase their independence by substituting a bowl for a plate, a spoon for a fork, or choosing from assistive dinnerware, mugs and flatware that address some of the physical issues associated with aging. For example, large handles offer a more comfortable grip, weighted utensils keep things steady, coated utensils protect lips and teeth and two-handed mugs with lids help reduce spills. However, creating contrast is still an important part of dining. Many residents suffer from visual impairment so distinction between the food, the plate and tablecloth should be considered. For that, we use brightly colored dinnerware, which will help residents identify where the food is on the plate. Bristol House believes in allowing flexible with mealtimes and give residents plenty of time to eat without being rush either. We know breakfast is key for Dementia and Alzheimer’s residents here and we offer a bigger window of time for all residents to get a chance for a great meal for breakfast. In general, Bristol House Memory Care food menu is built for smaller meals of just one or two food choices at a time, rather than three large meals a day. Finger foods, like sandwiches, wraps and fresh fruit and vegetables, are better choices for the residents that live here. This gives our residents who have lost strength, coordination or dexterity an opportunity to stay focused on eating instead of getting frustrated over the challenge of managing their flatware.
Bristol House Memory Care staff is train to help residents with dementia catch onto the motion of eating by placing the fork or spoon in their hand and help guide the utensil to their mouth or even model the motion you would like them to emulate. Also, if a resident can’t truly do this part our team here will feed the resident too.
Bristol House also wants residents to bring their social side to a table and engage with other residents and getting this done is by setting them up with their right social team we call it. Basically, pairing the residents together that we believe fits together. Also having staff ask questions and allowing the residents to be apart of answering the questions. It sparks residents to want to talk. Most residents have a lot in common.