How the Montessori Approach helps people with Dementia

Summary

Anne Kelly, a registered nurse, discusses her work in Montessori methods for aged care and dementia. She emphasizes the importance of maintaining independence, dignity, and self-esteem for the elderly. Kelly highlights how even those with advanced dementia can improve through procedural memory and repetition. She advocates for environments that foster learning and exploration, encouraging a shift from traditional aged care to a Montessori approach that nurtures strengths, stimulates the senses, and fosters intergenerational connections. Her approach is centered on creating meaningful roles and supporting success for the elderly.

Takeaways

• 😊 Independence is crucial for everyone, regardless of age, and many people do not want to rely on strangers for basic tasks.
• 👩‍⚕️ Anne Kelly, a registered nurse, has been working in aged care Montessori for 12 years and has found Montessori methods for aging and dementia to be transformative.
• 🎯 Her mission is to raise awareness about a different way to care for elders, maintaining their independence, dignity, and self-esteem.
• 📛 Name badges can significantly help people with dementia recognize and communicate with others by name, boosting interaction.
• 🧠 People with dementia retain their procedural memory, meaning they improve with practice, even if they don't remember the past.
• 🥄 Instead of feeding people with dementia when they struggle, Montessori methods encourage activities that help maintain their ability to feed themselves.
• 📚 People with dementia can still learn, and it’s important not to give up on teaching them or assume they cannot learn new skills.
• 😊 Focusing on strengths, such as a nice smile, helps create meaning and roles for people with dementia, enhancing their sense of purpose.
• 👨‍🏫 Tailoring activities, like allowing a former French teacher with advanced dementia to teach French, helps maintain their identity and engagement.
• 🌳 Creating environments that stimulate the senses and encourage interaction, including intergenerational programs, fosters a stronger community for the elderly.

Q & A

What is the main goal of the Montessori method for aged care and dementia?

The main goal of the Montessori method for aged care and dementia is to maintain the independence, dignity, and self-esteem of elderly individuals by offering support that focuses on their strengths and abilities.

Who is Anne Kelly and what is her role in aged care?

Anne Kelly is a registered nurse who has been working in aged care for 12 years. She discovered the Montessori method for ageing and dementia and has since focused on promoting this approach to care for the elderly.

How does the use of name badges help residents with dementia?

The use of name badges helps residents with dementia by enabling them to remember and address each other by name, fostering a sense of familiarity and connection.

What is procedural memory, and why is it important for people with dementia?

Procedural memory is the memory related to skills, habits, and learned behaviors through repetition. It is important for people with dementia because it allows them to retain certain abilities and improve through practice, despite memory challenges.

How does the Montessori approach differ from traditional aged care in response to someone losing the ability to feed themselves?

In traditional aged care, staff might start feeding a resident when they begin losing the ability to feed themselves to save time. In the Montessori approach, staff focus on activities to help maintain the resident's feeding ability for as long as possible.

What is the Montessori perspective on learning for people with dementia?

The Montessori perspective believes that people with dementia can still learn new things, and they focus on teaching and enabling individuals rather than assuming they are unable to learn.

How does the Montessori approach address repetitive behaviors such as repeatedly asking about a spouse's visit?

The Montessori approach seeks to teach residents ways to find answers themselves, like using visual cues or reminders, instead of simply responding to their repetitive questions.

What are some examples of strengths that the Montessori method utilizes for residents with dementia?

Examples of strengths include a resident's smile or ability to greet others. The Montessori method finds roles for them based on these strengths, such as greeting others, to give them a sense of purpose and belonging.

How does intergenerational programming benefit residents in a Montessori care environment?

Intergenerational programming, such as having playgrounds for grandchildren, helps keep elderly residents connected to their families and offers a more engaging and stimulating environment for all ages.

What is the overall philosophy of the Montessori approach in aged care?

The Montessori philosophy in aged care is about setting residents up for success by focusing on their abilities and providing a supportive environment that encourages independence and meaningful engagement.

Outlines

00:00

🧓 Importance of Independence in Aged Care

Anne Kelly introduces herself as a registered nurse with over 12 years of experience in aged care using Montessori methods. She emphasizes the significance of independence in aged care, stressing that no one, regardless of age, wants to lose autonomy in basic tasks such as feeding, dressing, or toileting. Her journey into Montessori care has given her a mission to help others maintain dignity, self-esteem, and independence through these innovative methods.

📛 Impact of Name Badges on Dementia Care

Anne discusses the transformative impact of name badges in dementia care. She explains how name badges help residents with dementia communicate more easily with each other by name, leveraging their procedural memory, which remains relatively intact. This small change allows people to recognize and engage more naturally, enhancing their social interactions despite memory loss.

🧠 Strength of Procedural Memory in Dementia

Anne delves into the concept of procedural memory, explaining how repetition strengthens a person's ability to perform tasks, even if they cannot recall having done them before. She highlights how individuals with dementia can improve certain skills over time through repetition, despite other memory challenges. This insight is crucial in helping people with dementia retain important abilities.

🍽 Maintaining Independence in Feeding

Anne contrasts traditional aged care approaches with Montessori methods, particularly in cases where individuals start losing the ability to feed themselves. In conventional care, the response might be to assist with feeding immediately, but Montessori practices aim to maintain that skill for as long as possible through supportive activities. This helps preserve the person's autonomy and dignity.

🧑‍🏫 Learning and Teaching for People with Dementia

Anne shares her belief that people with dementia still have the capacity to learn and improve. She contrasts common aged care practices, which often give up on teaching, with Montessori care that focuses on teaching residents useful skills to address common behaviors like repetitive questioning. The Montessori approach focuses on enabling residents to function independently by building on their strengths.

😊 Finding Strengths in Simple Actions

Anne emphasizes how even small strengths, such as a resident's ability to smile, can be utilized to give them purpose and meaning. For example, someone with a warm smile could greet others in the dining room, providing them with a role and a sense of contribution. This approach helps people with dementia feel valued and connected to their community.

🇫🇷 A Former Teacher Shares His Strengths

Anne shares a heartwarming example of a man with advanced dementia who was a former French teacher. Despite his cognitive decline, he continues to offer French lessons to staff and other residents. This example highlights the Montessori philosophy of encouraging residents to use their remaining strengths to engage and contribute to the community.

🌷 Stimulating the Senses for Well-Being

Anne talks about the importance of creating an environment that stimulates all the senses in dementia care. She advocates for spaces that invite exploration and sensory engagement, filled with colors, textures, animals, flowers, and intergenerational programs. These elements keep residents connected to the world and enhance their quality of life.

👵👶 Intergenerational Programs in Montessori Care

Anne highlights the value of intergenerational programs in aged care communities, describing how Montessori environments foster interactions between the elderly and children. By adding playgrounds and seating areas, children and grandchildren can visit and interact with the residents, strengthening family connections and enhancing the community atmosphere.

🎯 Setting Residents Up for Success

Anne concludes by summarizing the core of Montessori care: setting residents up for success rather than failure. The focus is on creating environments and activities that allow residents to be successful in their endeavors, maintaining their independence, dignity, and sense of purpose for as long as possible.

Keywords

💡Independence

Independence refers to the ability of elderly individuals, especially those with dementia, to carry out daily tasks without relying heavily on others. In the video, Anne Kelly highlights that maintaining independence is vital for an individual’s self-esteem and dignity. By focusing on activities that encourage autonomy, such as self-feeding and social interactions, the Montessori approach helps preserve this independence.

💡Dignity

Dignity is the state or quality of being worthy of respect and honor. In the context of elderly care, the Montessori method emphasizes preserving the dignity of individuals with dementia by supporting them in activities that they can perform independently. This respect for dignity is integral to the Montessori approach, which avoids infantilizing treatment, allowing residents to retain a sense of self-respect.

💡Montessori for dementia

Montessori for dementia is an adaptation of the Montessori education principles applied to elderly care, focusing on independence, respect, and a strengths-based approach. Anne Kelly, a nurse with extensive experience in this area, describes it as a way to help residents with dementia engage in meaningful activities and retain skills for as long as possible, enhancing their quality of life and sense of purpose.

💡Procedural memory

Procedural memory refers to the unconscious memory of skills and actions, like walking or feeding oneself. In the video, Kelly explains that people with dementia often retain procedural memory, allowing them to improve in repetitive tasks even if they struggle with short-term memory. This insight is a foundation of the Montessori approach, as it enables individuals to continue participating in everyday activities.

💡Enablement

Enablement is the process of empowering residents to perform tasks independently rather than doing tasks for them. Kelly explains that the Montessori approach focuses on enablement, offering elderly individuals tools and methods that encourage self-sufficiency, helping them maintain their sense of self-worth and identity through active participation in daily routines.

💡Name badges

Name badges are used to facilitate communication and connection among residents, especially those with memory impairments. Kelly discusses how name badges help individuals with dementia recognize each other and engage socially by name. This simple tool supports social interaction and community building, which is a core aspect of the Montessori approach.

💡Repetitive questioning

Repetitive questioning is a common behavior in people with dementia, where they repeatedly ask questions due to memory loss or confusion. Kelly suggests a Montessori-inspired approach to this behavior by teaching cues that help residents remember important information, such as the location of their room. This approach reduces frustration for both residents and caregivers by focusing on teaching rather than managing behaviors.

💡Community

Community refers to creating a supportive, social environment where elderly individuals can interact meaningfully with each other and with caregivers. Kelly emphasizes the importance of community in Montessori-inspired care, which fosters connections among residents and with their families. Adding features like playgrounds for grandchildren or encouraging social interactions during meals strengthens this sense of community.

💡Intergenerational programs

Intergenerational programs are initiatives that bring together different age groups, such as elderly residents and children, to interact and bond. In Montessori-based dementia care, these programs are used to improve the quality of life for the elderly. Kelly describes how outdoor playgrounds and seating encourage visits from grandchildren, helping residents stay connected to their families and enhancing emotional well-being.

💡Strengths-based approach

A strengths-based approach focuses on utilizing the capabilities that individuals still possess, rather than concentrating on their limitations. In the video, Kelly explains that the Montessori method values and builds upon even small abilities, like a resident’s smile or ability to greet others. This approach affirms each individual’s value and promotes their active involvement, preserving dignity and fostering self-worth.

Highlights

Independence is crucial for all individuals, especially the elderly, as it preserves their dignity and self-esteem.

Anne Kelly, a registered nurse, has dedicated 12 years to Montessori methods in aged care, particularly for those with dementia.

Montessori methods for ageing focus on maintaining independence and dignity, offering an alternative to traditional aged care approaches.

Procedural memory, which includes skills, habits, and repetitive actions, remains strong in people with dementia, allowing them to improve over time even without conscious memory.

In Montessori aged care, the focus shifts from assisting residents immediately to creating activities that help maintain their skills, such as feeding themselves.

Rather than accepting the decline of abilities, Montessori care aims to sustain these abilities for as long as possible through targeted activities.

Montessori care emphasizes teaching people with dementia instead of giving up on their learning, even if it's small, day-to-day skills.

Name badges are a simple yet effective tool that help residents with dementia connect by using each other's names.

Montessori care focuses on strengths like a smile or a handshake, helping people with dementia find purpose and roles in the community.

A man with advanced dementia, formerly a French teacher, continues to run French lessons for staff and residents, showcasing the potential of Montessori care.

Creating a vibrant, sensory-rich environment stimulates the elderly and helps them engage with the world around them.

Montessori environments include activities that stimulate all senses—sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste—creating a more engaging space for residents.

Intergenerational programs, such as playgrounds in outdoor areas, help elderly residents maintain connections with their grandchildren.

Montessori care fosters community by encouraging interaction between the elderly and their loved ones, including through outdoor play areas.

The Montessori approach sets up residents for success by creating conditions that enable them to succeed, even with simple tasks.

Transcripts

None of us, regardless of  our age, wants to be fed  

or wants to be dressed or wants  to be toileted by strangers.  

Independence is so important for a soul. My name is Anne Kelly. I'm a registered  

nurse by trade. I've been in aged care Montessori  for about 12 years. I stumbled across Montessori  

methods for ageing and dementia by accident.  And since then, my life has totally changed.  

It's changed because all of a sudden  I had a mission to make people aware  

that there was a different way to care for our  elders and a different way to offer support  

that would maintain their independence,  their dignity, their self-esteem.  

One of the best things and the easiest things  to change and get responses from is the use of  

name badges. Then all of a sudden, I see that  the residents, the people living with dementia,  

are able to talk to each other by name. A strength that people living with dementia have  

is their procedural memory. That  is their skills, their habits,  

classical conditioning, and repetition priming.  The more somebody does something, the better they  

get, even though they have a memory problem.  So think about it, you've got somebody with  

advanced dementia who cannot remember having done  anything ever before, but every time they do it,  

they are better at it than the time before. That  is one of the weird phenomena about our brain.  

For example, somebody losing  the ability to feed themselves.  

Can you imagine? What it’s like to have somebody  having to feed you? In traditional aged care, we  

would write in the progress notes: “Jack is losing  the ability to feed himself,” “So we better start  

feeding him.” To save the mess and the time. In the Montessori world, we say: “Jack is  

losing the ability to feed himself,”  “So we need to put in activities  

that will maintain that skill  for as long as possible.”  

I always look at people as having the ability to  learn. One of the things that we very easily do  

with people living with dementia is: we give up  on teaching them anything. And so we have aged  

care communities around the world who have people  full of behaviours such as repetitive questioning.  

“I can't find my room, where's my  room?” “When is my husband coming?”  

We say: “Okay, how can we teach somebody where  their room is?” “How do we teach somebody  

when their husband is going to come?” So it's  a different focus. It's a focus on enablement  

and it's a focus on the strengths. In my world, if  somebody has got a nice smile, that's a strength.  

How can I use that strength to give  them meaning, to give them a role,  

to make them feel that they matter? Somebody with a nice smile that can shake hands  

can greet everybody into the dining room. Twice  a day, for lunch and dinner. "It's lovely to see  

you. It's lovely to see you." Imagine, again, being a person  

living with dementia who every day  is greeted into the dining room.  

We have a gentleman who lives with very advanced  dementia. But he was a French teacher. He now runs  

French lessons for staff and for the other  residents there who wish to learn French.  

We need to create an environment that invites  exploration, that invites colour, that invites  

interest. The world is full of absolutely amazing  things to see, to touch, to smell, to taste.  

We've got to stimulate all the senses, animals,  gardens, flowers, intergenerational programs  

linking the young with the old. Many elderly people, for example,  

have grandchildren. How often do their  grandchildren visit? Very rarely. Why?  

Because they come into a care community. “Sssht!”  “Don't go there. Don't run. Don't touch that.”  

So in a Montessori environment, we put playgrounds  into the outdoor areas and we put seating. And the  

old people can go out with their grandchildren. This is how you create a community. This is  

how you keep people in touch  with the people they love.  

In a Montessori world, we set people  up for success, not for failure.  

And we do whatever is required for  them to be successful in what they do.