As a recap, back in May 2023 Catto Homecare provided five lucky clients with free MP3 players. We were all aware of the powerful footage of the famous ballerina when she listened to Swan Lake https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=959726784551737. However, we do not wish to digress.
Our most successful experience was provided by our highly energetic staff member who has an extraordinarily high level of enthusiasm with anything she undertakes. The initial MP3 player was gifted to one of our clients who we are going to call Maria (for the purposes of this blog) and it took a while to persuade her that it was a genuinely free item that she could listen to. Maria belongs to the age group where her belief is ‘nothing comes for free’. Maria is in her late 90’s, partially sighted and lives on her own with Alzheimer’s. Our care staff were given instructions starting with helping the client to put the old fashioned headphones on (similar to a hair band). Although we are not allowed to share the photo of Maria smiling on her chair listening to jazz in a world of her own, we can only describe her beaming smile when she wears her headphones and enthusiastic head nods to the music as heart-warming. Our initial blog covered the fact that her music choice was ‘any jazz is good jazz’. Maria simply accepted that this tiny bright pink device could magically play music loud enough for her to hear. Maria has recently had her chair increased in height to enable her to get on and off more easily and she sat with her headphones on and music at full volume sweetly shouting out with a big smile ‘I feel like a queen now’. All the staff feel quite guilty when we remove the headphones from our clients. We ensure they go into their lockable boxes and are turned off until the next special music therapy session.
The moral of the story is that we continue to receive just as much pleasure from the reaction of our clients during the music therapy sessions.
We are currently hiring staff so please feel free to get in touch for a cup of tea or coffee in our igloo for a chat about the roles we have.
If the readers are managers of a care home or domiciliary company like us, you can obtain five MP3 players from Norman McNamara from Purple Angel Dementia Awareness Devon, Charity Number 1189616, National Westminster bank Torquay Sort code 55 70 01, Account number 74884662. Catto Homecare provided a donation.
Written by Wendy from the domiciliary and live in care provider Catto Homecare in Mytchettwww.cattohomecare.co.uk