At
Market Lavington care home, the home’s wellbeing activity group took a drastic turn this week and ended up with Residents and Colleagues taking in turns to juggle snowballs!
The regular ‘Music & Movement’ group which takes place at the 80-bed residential, nursing and dementia care home, usually consists of performing gentle, seated stretches and exercises to music, an activity which is greatly enjoyed by the Residents.
Wellbeing Coordinator, Riaz Ali, usually bring some soft ‘snowballs’ in as part of the routine, where gently squeezing the balls can improve the dexterity and muscles in the hand. Lesley Shaw, Stanley Thompson, Gordon Grist, Angela Wakely and Frank Anderson, who are all Residents at the home, enjoy taking part.
On this occasion, one of the home’s newer Residents, Lesley Shaw, asked “Can you juggle?”
Another resident, Angela Wakely, said “I can! I will show you!” and shared some lovely memories of how this was one of her favourite pastimes as a child.
Then, Caroline Watson, the home’s Unit Manager, came into the room and joined in, stating “I used to be good at this years ago!”
Riaz said, “It was quite funny to see how the original wellbeing activity plan had been hijacked by the Residents! But it was great fun, and the juggling certainly fulfilled the criteria of our ‘Music & Movement’ group, albeit with the ‘music’ of laughter!”
Once everyone had lost their balls, the group continued with the normal movement activities, which helped to shed some calm on a rather excitable session.
The group stopped for tea and cake, then resumed with a general knowledge quiz, thus ending another successful afternoon activity at Market Lavington care home!
Stanley joked, “Next time can we do it with flaming batons?”
Riaz commented, “It was balls of fun!”