Cottages unveiled as the most recent addition to Beamish Museum's 1950s town are to be used to support people living with dementia and Alzheimer's.
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00:00 [Music]
00:28 Okay then Michelle, can you just tell me a bit about Clover Cottage and how it's going to be used with the project you're running to help people with dementia?
00:34 So Clover Cottage is the new space for the museum's health and wellbeing team.
00:39 So our team work with people who are living with dementia, people affected by dementia and other long-term health conditions,
00:47 including people who are living with some mental health conditions as well.
00:51 So the whole house has been designed to look 50s inside, but it's also been carefully designed so it's accessible and it's dementia friendly,
01:00 so that everybody can enjoy it and use it and feel safe here as well.
01:06 Always in the 1950s it was probably taking a lot of people back to their childhood and to their young adult,
01:11 so do you find that by people coming here, I hope you find by people coming, it'll help to spark their memory and also spark conversation and interest among people?
01:18 Yeah definitely, we don't just do reminiscence here, it's kind of all around us all the time,
01:25 so what we find is people just recognise things a bit more and it feels familiar and cosy.
01:31 We don't need to say, did you remember this, did you have this, people just instinctively, it feels homely and recognisable definitely.
01:39 What sort of activities will you do in the cottage?
01:41 Oh we'll do all sorts here, we're very lucky that we've now got a living room, a dining room and a kitchen.
01:48 We've also carefully designed the outdoor space so it's all flat, we've got raised beds and we've also got an amazing workshop,
01:55 which used to be a garage at Redhills in Durham, so we'll be doing craft activities, woodwork, gardening, baking, all kinds of different activities.
02:06 And where do the groups come from that come and visit, the ones involved in your project?
02:09 We work really closely with our local adult mental health team, so we know the occupational therapist really well,
02:16 and they often refer and signpost people to our team. Likewise the social prescribers in our local area,
02:24 also we get groups from care homes, hospices, community support groups coming to use the cottage in lots of different ways.
02:34 Well Kim, just tell me a bit about the role that Orchard Cottage, and obviously Clover Cottage,
02:40 played in supporting your mother in terms of working with her dementia.
02:44 That would be a pleasure. We moved mum up from Grimsby so she lost all her social support really when she came to live with us,
02:51 and Beamish provided a wonderful outlook for her. It was a place where she was made to feel welcome,
02:57 and actually she forgot she'd got Alzheimer's really.
03:00 The small cottage orchard that we came from had a small sort of coal fire and people would welcome her,
03:07 and they'd do activities, and she'd actually feel that she was volunteering.
03:11 Sadly she would often repeat stories, but the team would just listen to her and make everything that she said valued.
03:19 It was one of those areas where, even though she was still sadly very confused,
03:25 it was one of those places where she just knew that she'd be welcome, and most of all she'd feel secure,
03:31 and the things that she said and the things that she did would be valued.
03:35 It's down to the team, but it also helped that the cottage, and particularly now the new 1950s building,
03:42 was so reminiscent of things that were still deeply entrenched in her memory.
03:47 Before we moved out of Orchard Cottage, Mum was on a little committee, if you like,
03:54 and what she did was she remembered how things were in her house in the 1950s,
03:59 and she had some small part in suggesting colours and furniture and things that would perhaps help other people,
04:06 because sadly people in Mum's age are now passing away, and so people with the same sort of needs with Alzheimer's,
04:13 the 1950s, is now part of their long-term memories, hopefully.
04:19 [Music]
04:23 [Applause]