Chinese New Year was celebrated by residents at Camelot House and Lodge, a specialist dementia care home near Wellington.
Activities included Chinese lantern decorating, tea-tasting, a chopstick challenge and pan pipes.
Activities co-ordinator, Richard Dempslake, said: “We made Chinese New Year into a proper celebration for the people with dementia we support because the colour, sounds, tastes and opportunities for fun and creativity they could get out of it made it too good an opportunity to miss.
“We’re entering the Year of the Tiger, so in the lead-up to the day we worked with them to make tiger-striped Chinese lanterns, which they thoroughly enjoyed, ensuring we also took the activity to those residents who prefer to remain in their rooms so everyone would feel involved.
“Camelot House and Lodge was decorated throughout with our lanterns and other Chinese New Year decorations, and colleagues Kathy Burge, James Wilson and I got into the spirit of the occasion with some themed costumes.
“Meanwhile chef Chris, who wanted to offer residents a tempting taste of the Orient, devised a special menu and some delicious dishes after chatting with people about what sort of food they’d like to try.
“This also inspired us to organise a ‘Taste the Tea’ quiz where residents had to guess the flavours of different teas through taste and smell – with flavours such as peppermint, strawberry and raspberry, blackberry and blueberry, lemon and ginger.
“One of the highlights of the day was definitely our ‘Chopstick Challenge’ – testing our residents’ skills in handling chopsticks and they used them in every possible way!”
The Chinese New Year celebrations are part of a year-long programme organised by the activities team at Camelot House and Lodge, with activities devised to engage residents physically and through the senses, all of which is integral to quality dementia care.
Camelot House and Lodge is run by award-winning specialist care provider Camelot Care who also run homes in Bridgwater and Plymouth. Details at www.camelotcare.co.uk
More photos from the day below.
