The Knights Care Home

07/12/2025

After some pampering 💅 this morning, we continued the cozy Sunday vibes with a wonderful adventure film 🎥 chosen by the residents, 🎬 Journey to the Centre of the Earth 🎬, a colourful classic Hollywood Cinemascope epic with romance, danger, comedy and amazing subterranean landscapes 💎⛏️🌍🌋🗺🐉💕🔥. It stars James Mason and was adapted from a Jules Verne tale. The residents were rapt with attention👁👁👁👁!

07/12/2025

Funny things happen every day in our home! This was today's random event that made me chuckle. I have no idea how this occurred 😆

05/12/2025

I took our most chatty and inquisitive resident out for tea and a mince pie ☕️🫖🥧 at Ashton Gardens Pavilion and she was delighted to socialize with all creatures great and small - adults, babies, children, dogs! We also enjoyed looking at the Christmas market cabins and merry-go-rounds 🍬🌭🎁🎠🎡. Afterwards she told me she had lovely time 'just the two of us girls'. It's rewarding to make someone feel special and get to know them better!

05/12/2025

Some residents, during our monthly meeting, expressed the desire to go to the carol Christmas service 🎄👼🌟🔔. We will be attending the service at the URC church near Knights (opposite Aldi), leaving around 10.15-10.30 on December 21st. If family members or friends would like to visit at that time, it would be lovely to go as a bigger group 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧👴👨‍👩‍👦👩‍👦👵👨‍👩‍👧🧓🏿👨‍👦👶🏽👬 and sing 🎶🎶 together.

05/12/2025

One of our residents doesn't engage with most activities but loves the contact with dolls, so we purchased a realistic-looking baby boy doll named Ralph 👶🏽🍼. She immediately adored him! The primal need for love and affection always remains and we try to nurture it as much as possible 💛🧡🩷❤️💜💙🩵💚

04/12/2025

This morning we exercised our minds with seasonal brain teasers, quizzes, word games and searches, and reminiscence 🧠✨️💭⁉️❓️. Everyone is enjoying the tree where we have placed ornaments with the name of each resident, each one happy to see themselves celebrated 🪞.

In the afternoon we exercised our arms and coordination with different competitive ball games and a pool tournament ⚾️🎱🏀⚽️🏐🥎🧶.

The winners in the morning were rewarded with chocolate treats and in the afternoon with crackers full of jokes 🍫😋.

03/12/2025

Today we made some gifts 💝 for our loved ones who come to visit us - please pick one in the conservatory on your way in! This activity was good to do whilst reminiscing and chatting 😌😆 in the lounges and residents' bedrooms. It was also useful to help maintain dexterity with challenging objects: picking and sorting very small items, screwing, binding and making knots 🪢🖖🏻🫳🏻🫴🏾👌🏻🤏🏻☝🏿🫵🏼🪢. It's important to exercise and maintain dexterity, coordination and balance as much as possible in our golden years 🤸🏼‍♀️🤸‍♂️ to prevent falls and exercise independence.

30/11/2025

Some relatives have difficulties communicating with their loved ones who live with dementia. A few useful tips are:

🔹️to ask short and simple questions
🔹️to bring up broader themes for reminiscence as opposed to very specific questions (❌️️what is the name of that person in this picture? ✔️️how did you feel about going to the seaside?)
🔹️to be patient and give people the time to answer
🔹️to go along with their reality
🔹️people have better cognitive abilities in the morning 🌞🕙

and

🔷️nature 🐸 and music 🪕 are experiences that have a very powerful and lasting place inside our memories. Playing some of the person's favourite music and singing together at the beginning of a visit, and bringing pets 🐕🐩 or seasonal plants/natural objects to touch, see and smell can be very helpful, depending on the person (conkers, lavender bags, shells, seeds to plant in soil, etc. 🌱🌰🐚🪶)

This documentary about the power of music to help communicate with someone living with dementia is wonderful:
https://youtu.be/x9IHUPamCB4🎤🔈

Alive Inside is a joyous cinematic exploration of music's capability to reawaken our souls and uncover the deepest parts of our humanity. Filmmaker Michael R...

30/11/2025

This weekend the residents got into the festive spirit, decorating our giant tree🎄 and the fireplaces, making and writing Christmas cards 💌, putting together a lovely wreath 🎀 for our foyer, listening to organ music, reminiscing with loved ones and staff, singing carols and hymns 🎼, watching the Disney adaptation of A Christmas Carol 🥹 and discussing gifts 🎁 they would like to buy and receive.

Remember to save the date for our Christmas party on the 14th! 🤶🏻🎅🥂💃🏽

27/11/2025

Yesterday was an eventful day with a birthday celebration and music&movement 🏋‍♂️🏋‍♀️ with Sonia, and vaccines 💉 were administered today.

So we had an easy day with many loved ones visiting, dominoes, painting 🎨🖌, and writing Christmas cards to relatives and local schools in the hope of (re-)activating intergenerational partnerships 💌👵🧓👦👧 (which are particularly welcome during the festive season).

Some residents struggle with 'blank page' or 'blank canvas' anxiety and refuse to try an activity if asked verbally, so a good process is to simply begin the new activity which always raises curiosity 💭❓️❔️❓️💭, then people join in. Tools such as stencils can help residents get started more easily.

25/11/2025

Today we had a creative time doing some flower cutting and arranging ✂️🌻🌼🏵💐 to prepare a bouquet for one of our quasi centenarians who is celebrating her birthday today. She prefers yellow flowers and is always keen to celebrate her Welsh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 roots.

After our staff meeting and birthday celebration 🥳 I was able to spend a little time catching up with residents one to one, enjoying the Royal Ballet on TV 🩰 and doing some maths ➗ ️➕️ ➖ ️with a resident who enjoys this.

Tomorrow we celebrate another birthday 🎂🍰 then it's on to the festive season for which we have some fun plans 🎊

23/11/2025

This morning we exercised our minds with our first cognitive stimulation therapy 🧠 session, which will be a reoccurring activity. It is very helpful to maintain cognitive faculties as well as to socialize and learn together. This therapy incorporates wordplay 🆒️, song 🎶, reminiscence, the skills of participants, current news 🗞📰, temporal orientation 🍂🍁, debate and fun. Today we travelled around the world with the atlas 🗺📍 and even philosophized about how our bodies contain particles from the stars 🌠☺️.

In the afternoon we exercised our stellar bodies, inspired by Jane Fonda's aerobic videos, with some boxing 🥊🥊, chair exercises and coordination/target work 🎯. A little fruit and hydration 🍊🍌 was welcome after the workout 😮‍💨!