Dementia virtual reality experience set to visit Folkestone care home
A ‘dementia bus’ is visiting a Folkestone Care Home to help people to understand more about the condition.
Pelham House Care Home will have the bus on-site on Wednesday 27th July and is inviting local people to come along to try a virtual experience of how someone with dementia sees the world.
The two-hour sessions allow people with a healthy brain, the ability to peer through a window into the world of dementia, to better help them to understand the perspective for someone with the condition.
By better understanding, care can improve by being more reactive to what the person with dementia is seeing or experiencing.
The bus is run by specialist company Training 2 Care, to educate people on what dementia is, how it affects people and to allow people to temporarily step into dementia to truly understand what it’s like, with the aim of making it more comprehendible but also helping people to offer support with this understanding behind them.
Local people looking after family or who have friends with dementia, care workers, plus public sector services whose daily work might involve a dementia patient such as firefighters, ambulance, healthcare or police staff are invited to book onto the two-hour sessions which will run at 9:30am, 10:30am, 1:30pm and 2:30pm.
Pelham House Care Home owner Roger Waluube, who is passionate about improving how elderly people are viewed and looked after by our society, said: “When you understand dementia more, it can really help you to give better and more informed care.
“If you’re caring for someone with dementia, then you won’t have experienced the condition so you really can’t beat yourself up that you don’t fully understand what it’s like, but this experience can give a real insight.
“It can be very frightening and upsetting when someone you love has dementia – they can become different and unpredictable, but understanding more about it could remove some of that fear and give a carer confidence to offer more bespoke support.”
Places are free but will be limited. Contact Pelham House Care Home, Pelham Gardens, to find out more or book your place.
01303 767155.