During Dementia Awareness Week, everyone at Oakburn Park Day Care enjoyed a wonderful day celebrating the opening of the new dementia interactive sensory garden. The event brought together service users, carers, families, staff and representatives from the carers support group to share memories, experiences, and friendship in a warm and welcoming environment.
The sensory garden was designed to encourage reminiscence, conversation and sensory stimulation for people living with dementia. Different themed areas included old beach day memories, traditional picnic days, birds and bugs corners with nature sounds, and colourful sensory displays filled with flowers, textures and familiar items from years gone by. The garden created many meaningful conversations and encouraged service users to share stories and happy memories from the past.
Inside the day care centre, each table had its own colour theme and activities linked to that colour. Throughout the week, service users took part in memory games, quizzes and discussions using colourful objects, decorations and sensory items placed on each themed table. The activities encouraged interaction, laughter and social engagement while supporting memory and communication skills in a relaxed and enjoyable way.
Representatives from the carers support group attended the opening celebrations and spent time meeting service users and staff. Everyone enjoyed a delicious buffet lunch together which created a lovely atmosphere of inclusion, support and community spirit. The day was a great success and highlighted the importance of meaningful activities, sensory experiences and social connections for people living with dementia and their carers. The manager Donna McCallum would like to thank the staff for decorating, painting the garden in their own time.
