April Dobson, Head of Dementia Care & Wellbeing at leading UK care provider reports that the Namaste Care programme in their two “Centre of Excellence” homes is going from strength to strength.
“In common with many providers, we’ve been dealing with an ever-changing COVID-19 picture but I’m happy to say that Namaste Care has remained a priority.
Over the last few months, the team at Admiral Court have built a good understanding of the sensory resources that are meaningful and appropriate for the people taking part in their sessions and have invested in some new sensory lights, and a foot spa which people have responded to very positively.
One lady in particular has been transfixed by the lights, which appear to have a calming effect on her.

There are now 11 team members trained to deliver Namaste sessions at Admiral Court, and the rota is organised to enable them to deliver sessions twice a day, every day. Throughout July and August 2022 they have been keeping journals to help them reflect on the sessions and I’d like to share some of their thoughts;

• The Morning session went really well, P, Z, and N all had hand massages and became really relaxed – so much so that P fell asleep. N now talks about the hand massages and the sessions as her ‘beauty time’ and this is important for her as she always had great pride in her appearance.
• M was anxious about missing her bus but was keen to still come to the session. Once she was there, we put the lights on for her and she became calm and relaxed. This carried on after the session had finished.
• P seemed agitated at first and kept standing up and walking about. But as soon as we got the hand massage tray, she sat down and relaxed, smiling at us and closing her eyes…she fell asleep for a short time after a face and hand massage