A new method of care for dementia patients has been dubbed a success after it was introduced into a nursing home in Canberra a year ago.
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The program, Making Moments Matter, takes away the hostility of a formal nursing home environment, replacing it with everything homely.
From cuddles from staff, to walking with the cleaners, the new model is designed to make "family members" - not residents - feel at safe and at home.
The Mountain View Aged Care Plus Centre at Narrabundah is one of three nursing homes in Australia trialling the program, which has been run successfully in the UK for a number of years.
The centre has experienced a 100 per cent reduction in expressive behaviours common among dementia patients, like verbal and physical aggression, agitation, wandering and confusion, and a 33 per cent reduction in the number of residents requiring psychotropic medication.
An 85 per cent reduction in falls is attributed in part to brightly painted walls.
Amanda Jackson's mother, Sue, has lived in the dementia ward at Mountain View since 2008.
Prior to that, Ms Jackson was looking after her mother, putting in 30 hours of care a week.
"She was diagnosed in 2002," Ms Jackson said. "It was an unbelievable nightmare trying to care for my mother."
At the time, her mother was living in a retirement village. As well as her own hours of care each week, Ms Jackson said her mother received 18 hours of government care and more from a private carer.
"I was still concerned, mainly about her safety. She would wander, or she would turn the [heating] off and it would be the middle of winter. She would leave the stove on, she would leave the water running. It was an enormous relief to have my mum come into [aged care]," she said.
But it's become much better since the centre implemented the new program of care, Ms Jackson said.
Sue's aggression, a typical symptom of the confusion caused by dementia, has dissipated. She's also started eating again, after changes were implemented to make meal times less structured.
"[The carers] are much more tactile with the residents, they come up very close to them. If they want to shower or change them, they start a conversation with them first. They engage them and get their co-operation, and then move on to whatever they need to do," Ms Jackson said.
She said the morale had lifted too.
"You can't get away from dementia, it's a hard and heartbreaking journey, but there are these times and these moments. That's what the staff are encouraged to do, to engage with them momentarily where they are and respond to their emotions."
Carer Ahmed Selah has taken the program in his stride. He's started playing the pianola, and the residents all rise to dance around the man whose eyes twinkle and whose smile lights up the room.
"When I came to work here we were like robots," Mr Selah said.
"We have become part of their life, part of their family."
Mountain View centre manager Helen Blayden said she believed the program was the best model for caring for people with dementia.
"This model has shifted from task orientation to a focus on empathy and understanding for both the residents and the staff," she said.
