Our Specialist Dementia Care

At MHA, we are dedicated to providing exceptional care to people living with dementia. We offer tailored, person-centred care that recognises each person as an individual and addresses their spiritual, emotional and physical needs. We developed our own five-year Dementia Strategy in 2019 that has helped shape the life-enhancing support we provide.

We are proud to provide some of the highest quality care in the UK. We aim to alleviate the symptoms of dementia with understanding and expertise, which is why 87% of our care homes that provide dementia care are rated either 'Outstanding' or 'Good' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) or the Care Inspectorate Wales and Scotland (as of September 2020).

All our colleagues providing dementia support receive a full training programme which includes Dementia Friends, Love to Move, Understanding Distress Behaviours, wellbeing activities and dementia training for family members.

To find your nearest MHA dementia care home, please visit our dementia care page >

Read more about our specialist dementia care

> Activities tailored to people living with dementia
> Music therapy
> Green care
> Book of You
> Love to Move programme
> Robotic cats
> Partnership with Relish
> Working with John's Campaign
> Dementia resources

Activities tailored to people living with dementia

We’re dedicated to providing stimulating activities for people living with dementia. All of our care homes have an activities coordinator whose responsibility is to ensure there is a weekly activities calendar full of exciting and fulfilling activities suitable for all residents. From arts & crafts, chair based exercise and gardening to Cardio Drumming, themed days and dancing, in an MHA care home, there’s something for everyone of all abilities. 

Music therapy

We’re dedicated to being the leading provider of music therapy, with all our therapists qualified to Masters’ Degree level. Music therapy helps to reduce symptoms associated with dementia including anxiety and agitation.

Where music therapy is identified as being beneficial to the residents’ wellbeing as part of their care plan, they will be offered our award-winning, one-to-one and group music therapy sessions. Music therapy aims to bring peace and meaning to people living with advanced dementia. This support is provided at no additional cost, thanks to the generous donations and fundraising income that we receive as a national charity. If you’d like to support our life-enhancing work, please visit our fundraising page >

Our music therapists work closely with our care home senior care teams to adapt sessions to suit each person’s needs with the aim of nurturing their physical and emotional wellbeing. Music therapy enhances residents’ quality of later life, offering a chance to reconnect with their feelings, emotions and memories. Our aim is to extend the vital service to all our residents and community group members living with dementia.

To find out more, visit our music therapy page >

Green Care

It’s important for people living with dementia to get some fresh air and awaken the senses. Taking a short walk (in a safe space) will activate touch and smell senses that could allow individuals to reminisce and ignite a conversation.

To support the wellbeing of our residents, we have created activities that are based around nature and gardening. We have also been working with our friends at Dementia Adventure to provide Green Care training for MHA colleagues.

Book of You

We have been trialling the Book of You app in six of our care homes and retirement living communities. The simple life story app has helped families of MHA care homes and retirement living scheme residents stay connected during lockdown.

Book of You is a reminiscence tool for people living with dementia and uses words, pictures, music and film to create a biographical digital portrait of an individual. Relatives and friends are able to add video and audio messages to the app, which have then been played to residents during lockdown, helping them stay connected with familiar faces and voices.

Love to Move programme

We have been working with the British Gymnastics foundation to introduce the Love to Move programme across our care homes and retirement living communities.

Love to Move is a chair-based age and dementia-friendly gymnastics exercise programme, developed by the British Gymnastics Foundation. Specially designed to get older people moving and functioning better, the programme is proving particularly beneficial for people living with dementia.

Robotic cats

Thanks to our fundraising efforts and generous donations, we have been able to fund a robotic, interactive dementia cat in all 60 of our care homes that provide dementia care. The robotic cats are provided by Joy For All.

The cats bring moments of calm and companionship for people living with dementia. Our residents love to sit with them on their lap, stroking them as it responds back just as a real cat would.

Partnership with Relish (formerly Active Minds)

Since 2010, Relish have been researching and developing activities to improve the quality of life for people living with dementia. We partnered with them as their mission is to create positive, mindfully designed, person-centred activity products and games to help people lead active lives which can enable our residents to live later life well.

All of our 60 care homes that offer dementia care have an Relish activity pack which contains 32 products to support a variety of activities for people living with cognitive impairments, visual and dexterity challenges. The products have been designed specifically for care settings.

Whatever the interests; puzzles, painting, sensory or board games, there is something in the box for everyone as well as activities which can be completed in a group, or individually.

Working with John’s Campaign

We have also pledged support for John’s Campaign, which was set up with one principle: ‘We should not enforce disconnection between carers and those who need care. When someone with dementia is in care, the medical staff should do all within their power to make access easy for family carers and utilise their expert knowledge and their love.’

We worked alongside John’s Campaign on our COVID-19 visiting information. They were able to help us provide visiting guidance to ensure we reflected the views of families in our COVID-19 visiting policy >

Dementia resources

Our Supporting People with Dementia leaflet was developed working alongside our residents and community group members living with dementia and our Dementia Lead. The guide is written in the first person, from the perspective of a person living with dementia. It was created to help people to understand what it is like to experience dementia and to consider what support they may need.

We launched our five-year dementia strategy in 2019 titled ‘Uniting People Together’, written to ensure we are able to support people living with dementia and their families to live later life well.