Shortly after moving into a dementia care home last year, Jeannette Williams made a remarkable discovery: the iPad. At the age of 74, she had lost her husband, her home and much of her freedom, but the touch-screen tablet has given her a new lease of life. Instead of being stuck in front of the television, she can now read news, play games, listen to music and watch videos. Best of all, it has rekindled her passion for pottery.
“I like making pots. They had a potter’s wheel at my art college,” said Mrs Williams, who was diagnosed with dementia at the end of 2010 and moved into care last April. Her room is decorated with printouts of the virtual vases she has made with the Let’s Create Pottery app.
Mrs Williams receives fortnightly visits from Alive!, a charity that introduced her to the iPad through its work providing stimulating activities for older people in care. And she and her fellow residents at the Willows Dementia Care Home at Sand Bay, near Weston-super-Mare, have Wi-Fi internet access.
Yet more than eight out of 10 UK care homes offer residents no web access, according to a recent study by CareHome.co.uk. Still fewer provide Wi-Fi, which is generally needed to use an iPad. “It’s heartbreaking,” says Tim Lloyd-Yeates, who founded the Bristol-based charity Alive! four years ago.
He believes care homes should be required by law to meet quality-of-life standards, not just standards of treatment, staffing, safety and management.
“Through my work, I meet wonderful, interesting, once- independent people who, through no fault of their own, have lost touch with hobbies and interests, access to learning and decision-making skills,” he says. “They are bored and depressed, staring into space while an enormous TV blares out Jeremy Kyle. Touch-screen technology has enormous potential to reconnect them. With an iPad, you can look up someone’s favourite song on YouTube or find their childhood home on Street View. That’s a massive, positive shift in power.”
Prof Dominic Upton, director of health psychology research at the University of Worcester, agrees. In 2011, his study on the quality of life for people with dementia in 11 care homes found that tablets helped residents reminisce about positive times in their lives, build better relationships with staff and address practical challenges such as making menu choices.
One of the most heartening findings was the way in which the technology bridged the age gap. “I was surprised by how much the iPads enhanced interaction between residents and their carers, many of whom were young and inexperienced,” says Prof Upton. “Also, grandchildren would come to visit and say, ‘This is how BBC iPlayer works’ or they would explore YouTube together. The technology has great potential to bring generations together.”
With help from her carers, Mrs Williams has bought her own iPad. Tablets need not be prohibitively expensive: Tesco’s Hudl costs about £120, and ex-display iPads sell for about £250. Still, it’s important to know when to leave the iPad alone, says Lloyd-Yeates. “Sometimes people just want human connection, not gizmos.”
Visit aliveactivities.org and memoryappsfordementia.org
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/elderhealth/10717904/The-tablets-with-no-side-effects.html
