Plymouth Argyle memorabilia just the ticket for filling hospital memory boxes
Anything that helps to put our patients at ease, or makes their stay in hospital easier, can only be a good thing, which is why our Dementia Friend Champions and members of our Dementia Steering Group have been on the look-out for content to help fill up their memory boxes.
Their latest supply has come from a generous donation from the Plymouth Argyle Heritage Archive who, whilst on their recent annual visit to the hospital, handed over various bits of club memorabilia, for inclusion in the boxes.
“As a Dementia Friend Champion and a member of the Trust’s Dementia Steering Group, we’ve been looking at the provision of memory boxes right across the hospital,” explains Mandy Bellamy, Occupational Therapist at Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust. “I mentioned in the office what we were doing and asked Hayley, who plays for the Plymouth Argyle Ladies’ Team if she could get some memorabilia for us and it’s just snowballed from there.
“We have a lot of people from the older generations coming into the hospital but for all our patients, it’s about how we can improve their experience when they are here. The memory boxes are particularly a good way of doing this for our patients with dementia. If they’ve got activities they can engage in with either the staff, their carers or their families, it enables them to be more settled and makes their stay much easier for them.
“We’d like to say thank you to the Plymouth Argyle Heritage Archive for everything they have done, by providing us with photos, old programmes and even word searches,” concludes Mandy. “We hope as we roll out the project, that each ward will in the future have a box with the memorabilia specifically for dementia patients. We’ve had lots of memorabilia for our ladies, but not so much for the gentlemen so this gives them something that many of them can relate to.”
If you have items that might be suitable for inclusion in the memory boxes, you can donate them by contacting mandy.bellamy@nhs.net.