How Daily Routines Enhance Stability in Dementia Care Homes

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There’s something reassuring about doing what you’ve done before, over and over. Routines can be comforting because they’re familiar. Routines are grounding. When people begin to experience cognitive decline, falling back to a standard routine becomes extra important.

As a leader in dementia care homes in Toronto, Sagecare knows how important it is to treat residents with respect and dignity while caring for their safety and well-being. Establishing and maintaining routines plays a fundamental role from the time residents wake up to when they go to bed.

Please read on to learn about the role routines play in dementia care homes.

Waking Up and Going to Bed Comfortably

Older seniors experiencing cognitive decline respond often to signs of home they’ve lived amid for years. We make it a point to encourage our residents to bring familiar objects from their homes, things like decorations and pictures, so they feel at ease and relaxed.

The start and the end of the day is of major concern because it’s a transition period that can be unsettling and difficult without a few proactive measures. Sagecare makes a point of ensuring rooms are comfortable by reducing cognitive noise at key times, like screens that show flickering lights and blaring sounds upon waking up and going to sleep.

The rooms are decorated in soft, pleasing colours that aren’t too busy. While we believe in these principles, we also take a human-centred approach that varies per every resident’s needs. It’s hard to speak so broadly about these principles because no two residents are exactly alike, but in general, we try to make essential routines, like waking up and going to bed, comfortable for residents by incorporating familiarity and reducing outside noise.

Meals Matter

The food we eat daily is about much more than just providing sustenance for the body. Meals are a daily ritual period where people enjoy sensory experiences among friends and loved ones.

Breaking bread with people in our lives is one of the cornerstones of civilization. Mealtimes are a vital part of our daily routines, one we take seriously. We offer residents healthy, nutritious meals in a warm, comfortable, friendly environment.

People can share meals together or dine alone as they please.

Nurse-Led Organization

Sagecare is a nurse-led organization operating from a place of deep medical knowledge and clinical training. Our expertise in clinical practice, decision-making, leadership, research, and resource management comes from years of work and study.

While routine is the optimal way forward in ideal conditions, our personnel can make diagnoses and design interventions in the context of rapidly changing situations and circumstances. Sometimes, people with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia act in ways that make it challenging to distinguish between an emerging medical problem and an evolving behavioural symptom. Routines are very important, but we have the tested expertise to judge when something out of the ordinary is happening and the know-how to address it properly.

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Our long years of experience have shown us that it’s basically impossible to ever say a resident’s condition is 100% stable or predictable, as that’s not how dementia works. Emphasizing the comfort and support of routine while employing experienced nurses who still work hard to develop their skills provides the best of both worlds.

No matter if it’s the beginning or end of the day and a person’s routines, there’s always at least one nurse on site to oversee and handle any issue that may arise.

Family is Everything

The world’s most advanced carers and nurses can’t ever replace the role in residents’ lives filled by family and friends. The shared history and innate sense of comfort and belonging relatives makes people feel is special and totally singular.

Sagecare understands how difficult it can be for adult children to see their parents’ cognitive abilities change and the corresponding shift in roles this requires as caregivers and pillars of support. In our community, caring is an ongoing collaboration between friends, family, and specialists on site.

We welcome any visits from family and friends and are happy to work together to incorporate you into a resident’s routines or, if circumstances require, work around their routines so you can visit and spend time together. Whatever the daily rituals involve, we always make room for family.

Active Participation

Sagecare strongly believes in the idea that residents need to reinforce their own sense of agency. People with cognitive challenges mustn’t lose all their independence, as it’s a major part of their psychological sense of self.

Creating daily routines is an excellent way to encourage residents to participate in their own lives. For example, if they enjoy bathing in the morning, we encourage them to stick to it. We may aid them from the sidelines with memory care activities such as leaving a written reminder or, if they struggle to read, a visual cue to jog their memory.

Even leaving soap and shampoo in a conspicuous place in their washroom may be enough to remind them of their routine. Sagecare may also lay out their clothes for the next day in the order they’re to be put on, simplifying things.

Finding the balance between keeping residents with cognitive difficulties physically safe while ensuring they’re actively involved in their day-to-day lives is always a unique challenge. We offer structured dementia care, but no two people have the exact same condition. Conditions change, just like people’s moods may change throughout the day.

Believing in people’s ability to determine and participate in their own lives is one of Sagecare’s most strongly held beliefs. But when a resident’s cognitive condition requires intervention, we’ll always be there to help in an appropriate way.

Caring for people with dementia can be emotionally and physically challenging for non-experts outside a care home. It’s hard for people accustomed to seeing their elders in a reduced capacity, but cementing routines is one of the best dementia care strategies because it helps people in cognitive decline relax and feel more in sync with their day-to-day lives.