About us

With 15 plus years of working in community elderly Health and Social Care, comes experience of caring for older people who have varying degrees of mental health illnesses such as Dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease which effects ones brain function. Some of the elderly people we have worked with are also living with depression as a result of their mental health illness. We have also worked with older people who do not have any of the mentioned mental health illnesses, but feel isolated and lonely for a multitude of reasons, which can then lead to being depressed and can turn into a mental health illness in its own right. Weather it be a single mental health factor or a combination of factors, mental health can often make a person feel frightened, lonely, lost, even feeling as if their mental health doesn't matter to others, as well as being a scary time for family members too, who can feel lost in how to support their loved ones.

We have seen first hand how easy it is to care for someone's physical health that may be associated with a mental health illness, for example when there is a decline in cognitive ability within the brain, making it harder for an elderly person to carry out simple tasks for themselves such as washing and eating, care professionals are sent to help with these tasks. However, we have also experienced the lack of time during physical care to help ones much needed social, mental health. We found it shocking to see that care providers are largely governed to put physical health before mental health instead of creating a more wholistic approach. Very often we would find ourselves saying in the middle of a conversation, sorry we have to go, we have completed your care and your call has finished, even when it was painfully obvious that person was desperately lonely and needed to talk, with an obvious mental health decline towards depression over time, often leading to the self neglect of not washing or eating. Mental health in turn can effect physical health. Even someone with an advanced mental health illness such as Dementia can wrongly just be assisted with their physical health needs and their mental health takes a back seat. Just because an elderly person may no longer be able to walk and talk, it doesn't mean there are not ways to evoke emotional responses from them, even if it is the slightest of responses such as a positive change in facial expressions it is meaningful, but when there is not time to encourage this during a care visit it feels so wrong to us.

​

All the above factors have lead us to create what we are calling a Memory Moments folder. A folder created that you can purchase for your elderly loved ones, with content to be enjoyed filling in together, as well as activities and helpful tips to aid brain health, plus contact details of organisations who help advise on elderly mental health. 

​

Something else we have particularly seen first hand, is how music can evoke positivity even when you thought a loved one could no longer communicate due to their mental health condition. Seeing their eyes widen at the sound of a song or their head tilt towards where the music is coming from, even tapping their foot along to the music can be significant, a joy to see amongst the fog of feeling like you have lost someone to a cruel illness, showing there is something you can still do with your loved one. Music can sometimes make you feel re-connected to your loved one even in a small way. Music can also be a fantastic mood booster for someone who might be feeling depressed. Playing a favourite song could help lift their mood even for a few minutes. Whilst we have a variety of activities in our Memory Moments folders, from colouring pages to gentle exercise suggestions and pages to include some personal photographs amongst other activities, the power of music should not be underestimated in aiding mental health and as such, ways to incorporate music with your loved one features in various sections within the Memory Moments folders. 

​

​

We hope that more elderly people and their families will begin to feel less alone the more mental health aid is recognised. Every small action can lead to a bigger change and we hope if even in a small way, our business will be part of mental health positivity. 

​