Our specialist dementia care

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 is a proven alternative to antipsychotic medication in helping alleviate anxiety and distress.

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 and helps to bring back fond memories.

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 their 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.

Green care is also about bringing the benefits of nature indoors, 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.

HUGs

Thanks to funding, we've been able to purchase HUGs for our care homes and provide training sessions for colleagues on how to use them.

The HUG has been designed and researched by Cardiff Metropolitan University to help comfort people living with dementia and replicate the same feelings they would get from hugging a relative or loved one.

The purpose of the sensory product is to be cuddled, it also has a beating heart within its soft body and you can play a person's favourite music to bring calm and comfort. 

Robotic pets

Thanks to our fundraising efforts and generous donations, we have been able to fund a robotic, interactive pet in all our care homes and retirement living. 

The cats or dogs 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 pet would.

Partnership with Relish (formerly Active Minds)

We partnered with Relish as their mission is to create positive, mindfully designed, person-centered activity products and games to help people feel engaged and have fun. 

All of our care homes have Relish activity packs which contain products to support a variety of activities for people living with cognitive impairments, and 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 that can be completed in a group, or individually.

Magic Tables and Tiny Tablets

We've invested in interactive, motion-activated sensory projection systems which support residents living with dementia – and the effect on residents, their families, and staff has been amazing.  

With the goal of stimulating, engaging, and relaxing the mind, the projection technology, which is nicknamed ‘magic tables’, comes equipped with quizzes, music, and themes that have been designed to prompt conversations, spark nostalgia, and maintain memories. Its use of therapeutic scenes and sounds that derive from nature have been known to instantly promote feelings of calm for residents living with dementia.

Tiny Tablet and Magic Tables are portable and height-adjustable which means they're more accessible for everyone. Magic Tables can project coloured streams of light onto any table, bed, or floor.

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. It's been specially designed to get older people's brain's functioning and body's moving better. The programme is proving particularly beneficial for people living with dementia.

We were given the 'Best Collaborative Partner' award in 2021 for our colleagues who have taken up the 'Love to Move' training to deliver exercise sessions suitable for our residents and members across MHA.

Book of You

We have been trialing 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, helping them stay connected with familiar faces and voices.

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 which was later adopted by and referred to by other organisations. 

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 three-year dementia strategy in 2019 which we've updated for 2023-2026 which you can read here >