We’re delighted to share how Abbotsford Nursing Home has been delivering the Namaste Care programme, please read below to find out more.
In Abbotsford Nursing Home we have implemented a Namaste Care programme, founded by Joyce Simard. ‘Namaste’ comes from the Hindu greeting and expresses a wish to honour the essence of an individual person. Namaste Care believes, that despite the ravages of dementia on the brain, the ‘essence’ and ‘spirit’ of the person remains. The challenge is to find ways to connect to the individual’s spirit, to enrich everyday life experiences and doing so improve quality of life.
The principles of the Namaste Care programme include creating a calm and comfortable environment, providing activities and interactions with an unhurried, loving touch approach, and using other elements to engage the senses. This all leads to creating an environment and atmosphere to allow space for positive and meaningful connection.
Abbotsford nursing home was the second home in Scotland to implement Namaste Care following a supportive educational programme developed initially in 2011 by Dr Lorna Reid, formally of Accord Hospice and now Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice, in 2013 Fiona Irvine joined form the Ayrshire Hospice.
In 2013 Lorna and Fiona further developed the Education Programme resulting in a four day face to face experiential pilot course. Part of this course provided a placement day within the only care home in Scotland to have successfully implemented Namaste Care with the support of Lorna.
Due to Abbotsford attending palliative care courses run by the Ayrshire Hospice we were asked to join the pilot. The successful implementation of Namaste Care was initially supported by the Ayrshire Hospice through regular support meetings from Fiona. Our activity organiser, Lianne Lieser attended the pilot and immediately saw the benefit that Namaste Care would bring to our residents who did not actively participate or engage in activities within the Home. Through, trial and error we adapted the criteria on occasions to suit the needs of our residents, we have looked at residents with levels of distress, anxiety, low mood. The feedback from residents, families and staff were very positive and encouraging. Staff have also reported that residents appear more alert, more relaxed and eat and drink more after a session at Namaste.
Margaret Chisolm, aged 83 lives with Parkinson’s disease which affects her dexterity causing her to be stiff and sore at times, she is unable to lift a glass independently. However, after a session of Namaste, she is able to pick her glass up and with the use of a straw take a drink independently. “I feel much more relaxed after Namaste, I especially enjoy the massage”
One relative said, “My wife is more alert and smiling, which I haven’t seen for a long time”.
We have been committed in implementing Namaste Care with the residents since, 2014 and pre-pandemic they welcomed participants from future courses on placement days. The project has demonstrated the effectiveness of collaborative working between hospices and care homes to improve the quality of life for residents and their families living and dying with various life limiting co-morbidities including advanced dementia.
We are now one of the few homes who continue to provide Namaste Care in Ayrshire and recently we were approached by Fiona Irvine and Dr Lorna Reid who were looking to restart the Namaste Care training following the unsettling time after the pandemic. We were asked by them to get involved, by making a sort film as a testimonial to improve communication about Namaste Care and inform others about the benefits of Namaste care so they could promote their new training programme and encourage other care homes to develop Namaste Care within their homes.
