Pennwood’s Household Model is about developing solutions to make our residents feel at home. The Household Model has given residents a sense of purpose and value by including fixtures and furnishings of by gone days. This allows our residents to dream and reminisce.
“Oh to have a little house…”
As a result of increased physical activity and contentment under this model, interim results show stabilisation in resident’s pain, weight loss, skin integrity and restraint.
Pennwood Village has seen a 90% reduction in extreme behaviours, an 85% reduction in falls and an 80% decrease in the number of residents requiring psychotropic medication.
The CE, Anne Brown, says “These results demonstrate that the physical environment is not the only consideration to make when caring for persons living with dementia. The value of replacing task orientated care routines with relaxed homelike experiences, where staff is considered to be an extension of family cannot be underestimated.”
“The benefits of having buildings designed as homes to make it evident where you are and to support living activities like eating in a dining room next to the kitchen with the smell of food being served. To sit next to a warm fireplace in a comfortable homely chair, surrounded by cultural memorabilia has a significant impact on physical, psychological and social wellness.”
In essence, we’ve been able to quantify that dignity in care is the key to quality of life and this is achieved through the Household Model and “Person Centred Care.”
By providing constant reminders of who they were, a person with dementia will not lose their sense of identity. The environment includes space for the resident and their visitors to use within the unit and in its immediate surroundings.
Stigma remains a problem for people with dementia so the unit is designed to blend with the existing buildings and not stand out as a ‘special’ unit.