Move More Month in April is an annual celebration that encourages individuals to move more and sit less in their daily lives. Encouraging moving more in care services is important because of the positive impact on health and wellbeing, particularly for older people in care who are susceptible to health conditions such as contractures.   

There are many ways care services can participate in Move More Month. 

Encourage staff and residents to get moving by organising a step challenge. Participants can track their steps or distance and compete against each other or work together towards a shared goal suitable for the people you support. This can be a great way to build camaraderie, competitiveness and promote physical activity.  

There are many available exercise classes that specialise in hosting for care services from ballet to yoga to tai chi and will often have a free trial for the first session. Even using a singer can encourage dancing from the people you support. Exercise class participation doesn’t have to include full body movement, smaller movements such as clapping and foot tapping all bring their own benefits.  

Walking groups are a simple and effective way to encourage moving more. Set up designated walking routes around the service or nearby community and invite the people you support to join in. Depending on the location of the walking route, perhaps set up a treasure hunt or nature spotting sheet to give the walk purpose. Walking groups can be a great opportunity to socialize, enjoy the outdoors and nature, and improve physical health. 

In addition to formal exercise, there are other activities and hobbies that encourage movement such as balloon tennis, gardening, giant parachute, hoopla or boules to encourage movement. These activities can promote movement and socialization while providing a fun and engaging way to stay active.  

Participating in Move More Month can have significant benefits for the people you support. By promoting physical activity and movement, care services can improve overall health and wellbeing, reduce the risk of injury, build a sense of community and camaraderie and have fun. By using digital care planning software such as Nourish, you are able to record a person’s likes and dislikes, mobility and log what activities they have engaged with including pictures. 

Download our latest monthly activity planner here and sign up to our newsletter to receive future activity planners here. 

To find out how Nourish can help you record and evidence activities in your care service, book a personalised demo today. 

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Music Therapy: the power of music in care

Oral Health Month

How to better manage falls in your care service

Using music is a simple and yet incredibly powerful and effective tool which can be easily deployed and offers numerous benefits to those living in care services. 

Regardless of a diagnosis, listening to music releases endorphins which can reduce anxiety, depression and agitation and also improves attention and concentration, cognition, memory, speech and non-verbal communication skills. Music can be a great distraction and distress reducer. 

Music can be an easy way to get conversations started to increase social interaction. Finding the same love for an artist or genre can help start friendships and reduce social isolation. The beauty of music is that it allows individuals to bond over childhood memories of the songs that were sung to them by their parents and the songs they’ve gone on to sing to their own children and grandchildren.  

Music is a form of therapy regularly used by Speech and Language Therapists. For those who struggle with aphasia, a type of therapy called Melodic Intonation Therapy is sometimes used in sessions. Aphasia is when a person has difficulties with language or speech after experiencing an injury, such as a stroke, that has damaged the left side of the brain. Melodic Intonation Therapy engages the undamaged right side of the brain that is capable of language to improve speech and helps to improve language by using intonation.  

For those living with dementia, music can be an extremely powerful tool.  

Musical memory is stored in a different part of the brain and is a form of implicit memory. Implicit memory is part of our long-term memory, where skills are stored and remembered unconsciously. Explicit memory is the long-term memory where we have to consciously recall information such as a maths equation or a fact. For example, if you were to be asked to type a sentence, you would likely be able to type it without thinking but if you were asked to name five letters in the top row of a qwerty keyboard, it would be a harder task. The former comes under implicit memory while the latter is explicit memory.  

Because music falls into the implicit memory category and the part of the brain that stores musical memories isn’t affected until much later on in the disease, the ability to remember music often stays long after other aspects. Music has the ability to assist those with dementia in connecting with memories of the past but also helps to express feelings and ideas, encourage physical exercise, increase social interaction and even reduce distress.  

It is widely believed that hearing is the last sense to go at the end of life. Music has the ability to provide peace and comfort not only to the person at the end of their life but their family members. Studies show that music has the power to reduce anxiety, agitation and pain for the person at the end of their life, their family and the staff providing care.  

To ensure that end of life care continues to be person-centred, every Nourish care plan has a section on end of life to find out and record the person’s wishes and ensure the end of their life is as peaceful as possible.  

There are many resources available to enable listening to music in care services from Music 4 Dementia radio to classic radios or headphones for those who are hard of hearing. 

Using Nourish as your digital social care records platform means you are able to record any and all activities that take place with the people you support. You can record the people you support’s favourite songs and genre in Nourish. The Nourish app also includes a picture taking feature so you can visually document the activity as it happens. The Family Portal also allows family members of the people you are supporting to see what their loved one has been up to and what they’ve enjoyed doing.  

Did you know today is Blue Monday?  

Reports suggest that the 3rd Monday of January is the most depressing day of the year because of: 

While Blue Monday started as a marketing campaign by Sky Travel to encourage us to book a holiday to counteract the January Blues, it has since become a great excuse to discuss our mental health. So how can you counteract the January Blues?  

To combat the effects of Blue Monday, transform the day instead into Brew Monday, a term coined by The Samaritans. Brew Monday encourages us to sit down for a cuppa and have a chat with those around us, family, friends or work colleagues, to check in and see how they’re doing. Brew Monday is a great activity idea for your care service, allowing those you support to make friends or open up about how they’re feeling. Find out more about Brew Monday, here.  

While exercise is proven to lift our moods, an exercise session doesn’t always have to mean a session in the gym. Sometimes a good walk will blow the cobwebs away and get the serotonin flowing. And these days, there are many different types of unique exercise such as laughing yoga or goga (goat yoga) and many exercise sessions can be modified to be chair-based. There is something out there for everyone!   

Don’t be hard on yourself if you’ve slipped on your New Year’s Resolutions. We are all human after all. One slip up doesn’t mean we have to give up! Remember it takes seven tries to secure a habit.  

Starting your day by saying positive statements in the mirror can be hugely beneficial. Reports show that by doing this, you can challenge and overcome negative thoughts and self-doubt while at the same time encouraging confidence and self-belief.    

Improving your home space can have a massive impact on your mood. So tidy that drawer that needs sorting, go through your clothes and donate unworn items to charity, buy a houseplant, put up your favourite picture on the wall or change your bedding!  

Cook your favourite meal or order your favourite takeaway, watch your favourite programme or film. Treat yourself and make yourself smile, you deserve it! Tell your loved ones what they mean to you, treat them to something they love or do something to make their day better. Even something small will go a long way to improving their day and their happiness will rub off on you!  

Best practice defines the best way to achieve effectiveness and efficiency. In healthcare, this defines the best way to improve the health and wellbeing of the people supported.

Best practice defines the best way to achieve effectiveness and efficiency. Cambridge dictionary defines it as “a working method or set of working methods that is officially accepted as being the best to use in a particular business or industry.” In health and social care, this encompasses many areas from oral care to podiatry, to medication or mental wellbeing, and defines the best way to improve the health and wellbeing of the people supported. Best practice is the conclusion of high-quality evidence from recent, relevant and helpful care methods, procedures, techniques and interventions. The implementation of best practice aims to improve each individual supported’s health
outcomes and the quality of healthcare as a whole.

“Nourish has given us the opportunity to be really creative in tailoring interactions to meet the specific needs of our individuals, so that we can design a truly unique service for each person.” – Heathville Care

While the Care Quality Commission (CQC) doesn’t define best practice in care, there are independent bodies within the health & social care sector that are dedicated to researching and assisting in delivering best practice. Utilising these bodies, such as the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB), The Outstanding Society, National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE), The National Care Forum and Care England, will share the best practice that is currently being exercised. These bodies will also provide a community and if you choose a
digital platform that works with them, they will be able to put a voice to your evidence and opinions that can continue to shape best practice.

The government’s digital deadline that requires 80% of care services to be using a digital system by 2024 suggests that using a digital care planning platform is considered best practice. A digital care planning platform that is customisable, flexible, person-centred and can be tailored to the needs of your care service ultimately becomes the best practice solution as it fits all of your needs. A digital care planning platform can give you the tools to assist you in working to achieve best practice care such as Oral Health Assessments or Quality of
Life Tools.

With digital care planning, care staff can record notes on the go and at the point of care meaning their notes are more accurate and they have more time to flesh out the care note to be more person-centred. With more accurate and person-centred notes recorded on a digital system, care teams are able to track any changes on dashboards that showcases the information clearly and instantly. A digital system means any changes will be picked up quicker and don’t require searching through paper care plans.

Within Nourish, each care service will be assigned Libraries specific to their care types. These Libraries are collections of managed assets, such as interactions, assessments, care plan templates and more for managing specific pathways, conditions, needs and day-to-day operational requirements. Our Libraries have been built alongside care and clinical professionals, with a deep understanding of the sector and needs of the population. Nourish were one of the first to be accredited on the NHS Transformation Directorate Assured Supplier List and is a Quality Partner of the PRSB, working to promote best practice standards for care. Nourish were also the first to get the PRSB Digital Care and Support Plan Standard. Nourish partners with leading technologies in the health and social care sector to create an integrated ecosystem for care services so Nourish becomes the single source of truth. As standards and best practice evolve, not only does Nourish include advanced workflows for incident management, it also integrates with NHS technology systems such as GP Connect and other leading
suppliers, such as Nexus by GHM Care for nurse call alerts, Radar Healthcare for Incident Management and MED e-care for eMAR with many more to come.

The flexibility of Nourish allows for a constantly evolving best practice, not just for the care sector, but importantly your contexts of care and organisation’s evolving processes. Best practice says you should record x and y. With Nourish, if it is relevant and you think its beneficial, you can add that z also needs recording. A perfect balance between standards-based best practice and ever evolving best practice that doesn’t
stagnate.

“The timelines really help care teams keep up to date and aware of what everyone’s needs are such as turns, fluid intake, wound care, and being able to add photos really helps document some of these things and see improvements in those we support. Also seeing things like how much people are eating and how they are doing in day to day life can really help us see where the gaps are and what we can do to improve their care.” – South Coast Nursing Homes

Best practice is never set in stone. What was best practice is 2020 may not be best practice in 2022 if the evidence provided by care professionals has proved otherwise. The idea of best practice is always evolving as collaboration and evidence are built. Working towards best practice will always be an ongoing process.

Christmas 2022 is fast approaching and appears to be the first Christmas since 2019/20 without national lockdown restrictions affecting the way we celebrate Christmas, hooray! So, with a somewhat normal Christmas ahead, what activities can we host that are fun and festive for everyone regardless of age and ability! 

Christmas is a great time for creating festive crafts. There are many simple and meaningful crafts you can make with the people you support to get in the festive spirit.  

Wreaths – create a Christmas wreath with the people you support to hang on the doors of the people you support’s rooms. There are many options depending on capabilities and your risk assessments from coloured wreath to fresh wire wreaths.  

Card making – decorate Christmas cards with the people you support to send to their families or for a card swap within your service. The cards can be as simple as a Christmas photo taken of each person with a message on the back. 

Centrepieces – if you’re planning on having a Christmas meal with the people you support, decorate centrepieces for the tables. These can be as intricate as decorated logs or snowy mason jars with LED candles in.  

Food is a huge and important aspect of Christmas for many people and activities centred around fluid and nutrition can be beneficial to those living in care. 

Treat tasting – try all the Christmas goodies from mince pies to fruit cake, to sherry and eggnog. Did anyone have a sweet table just for the Christmas period and if so, what sweets did they have? 

Cheese & wine (or wine alternative) evening – throw a special event for the people you support with cheese and wine (or a non-alcoholic alternative) and, if appropriate, invite their families to join the festivities. You could even hold a raffle and ask local businesses to donate prizes.  

Baked goods decorating – there are many different baked goods available at Christmas time at varying levels of difficulty. Gingerbread houses are more difficult than they look while covering cookies and cakes with icing and sugared decorations are a little easier.  

Reminiscence – Using reminiscence packs or information from the internet, discuss the Christmas traditions the people you support engaged in with their families. Are there any you could implement into your care service? 

Movie showing & snacks – make Christmas Eve special with a showing of a Christmas film with hot chocolate and snacks. 

Choir singing – spread the Christmas cheer by having a sing along. Instead of printing out songbooks, why not utilise YouTube and put the lyrics on a tv screen for everyone to see.   

Check out our December activity planner for more ideas on what to do throughout the festive period. We’d love to see any photos of the activities you participate in, please send them to caring@nourishcare.co.uk or tag @NourishCare on social media. 

We’re all taught that oral health is essential to keep our teeth healthy but what does this really mean? Poor oral health can lead to malnutrition, pneumonia and a weakened immune system which can make it harder to recover from common illnesses. Studies are being conducted to see whether dental hygiene has any links to dementia. So how can we encourage better dental hygiene?

Getting people you support to the dentist is no easy feat. Dental practices aren’t always accessible, medical settings can be quite distressing and getting there requires accessible transport and extra staff. Instead of taking the people you support to the dentist, why not bring the dentist to you? Domiciliary dental services provide dental care right at home.

Some local NHS trusts offer training on dental health for a few members of staff, appointing these staff members as Oral Health Champions. These Champions undertake the training and the responsibility of training existing and new staff.  Ensuring your service is working to the NICE guidelines and the Oral Health policy could also become part of the Champions’ role.

Activities are a simple and fun way to encourage conversations about good oral health. Brushing your teeth may not seem fun but, depending on the people you supports abilities, it can be! If you have any keen knitters, download knitting patterns for knitting teeth, tooth fairies or tooth fairy pouches for grandchildren, young relatives and friends’ children. Arty people could have a go at crafting teeth and toothbrushes out of leftover cardboard and painting them. If you have any connections to a local school or nursery, invite them over (Covid-19 permitting) for a lesson on mouthcare. You could even have a sensory afternoon of science experiments, making elephant toothpaste, growing plaque with yeast and sugar and, egg brushing.

The Nourish platform allows dental hygiene to be logged, tracked and managed and provides an Oral Health Assessment Tool (OHAT) for new admissions. In Nourish, you are able to plan, manage and evidence dental appointments and visits and use the OHAT for regular reviews on the oral health of those you support. The Alerts and Warnings function can ensure appointments and reviews are not missed. Because dental health can have a significant impact on the general health of the people you support, the ability to monitor means early intervention is possible.

Getting enough fluids is incredibly important for our health, and even more so the older we get. After all, our bodies are made up of mostly water, and our organs need water in order to function properly and remain healthy. It may seem so simple to drink water, but there are so many things that can cause us to lose fluids without even realising it. Here’s our top tips on how to prevent, detect and treat dehydration in older adults. 

Dehydration can become far more serious than we might imagine, especially for the elderly. As we age, the body loses its ability to retain as much water, meaning older adults need to ensure they are re-hydrating more frequently. Again, the answer seems so simple – drink more water, but the older we get, we also begin to lose our sense of thirst! This means we may not realise that we’re becoming dehydrated, so by the time we reach the point we feel thirsty, we’re essentially already dehydrated. 

There are many different opinions on how much water one should drink daily, but the NHS website recommends 6-8 glasses as best practice. However, this really depends on a number of factors such as how active you are, what climate you live in and your height and size. 

We get about 20% of our water intake from our food, so the general rule of thumb is to aim for around two litres of water per day, topping that up when it’s hot or if we’re doing exercise. And as mentioned above, if you’re thirsty, this means you’re already dehydrated, so it’s important to get into the habit of drinking small amounts throughout the day to keep your fluid levels up. 

There are a number of different reasons why dehydration can be more common in the elderly, and it’s important to be aware of these so that you can spot the signs of dehydration early. In recognising these factors, you can be better equipped to prevent, detect and treat dehydration in older adults. 

Medication is something to be mindful of when trying to prevent and detect and treat dehydration in older adults as certain medications can cause excess loss of fluids and electrolytes. This is why you may notice your doctor telling you to drink more water than usual when taking a course of antibiotics, for example. If you have older adults in your care taking daily prescription meds, extra fluid intake should become a natural part of their routine. 

Older adults may start to experience incontinence issues, which can make them reluctant to drink fluids regularly in case they have an accident. This can be extremely harmful to the body, so it’s important for anyone experiencing these types of issues to speak with their GP for advice on how to control incontinence in a safe way. 

Older adults living with dementia may forget to carry out daily routines such as drinking water, so it’s important that those caring for people with dementia keep track of fluid intake and encourage it regularly. In advanced stages of Dementia, patients can sometimes develop dysphagia which is difficulty swallowing – making the basic act of drinking water incredibly painful. In these cases, providing fluids intravenously may be the best way to prevent dehydration. 

It is important for carers, and the elderly themselves to be able to spot the signs of dehydration quickly in order to treat them, but many of the early signs of dehydration can easily be ignored or misdiagnosed. 

Early signs of dehydration can include obvious symptoms such as thirst, and can also commonly present itself in headaches, dizziness, dry mouth, fatigue and lethargy, infrequent and dark urine. Most of these early signs of dehydration can be treated simply by immediately increasing fluid intake. The easiest way to know whether you’re hydrated enough is to check the colour of your urine. A light yellow or clear colour indicates hydration levels are all good. 

However, more severe signs of dehydration may include diarrhea and vomiting, confusion, and blood in your stools. If you notice any of these symptoms in yourself or someone in your care, it is important to contact the GP immediately for medical intervention. 

Water is undoubtedly the best option when replenishing fluids, however any drinks will contribute to your daily fluid levels. It is generally advised that caffeinated drinks such as coffee aren’t the best source for hydration because they can have a diuretic effect, but that’s not to say these drinks should be avoided altogether as part of a balanced diet.

Alcohol is also not recommended, especially in people who are already dehydrated as this will just make things worse. Older adults can also be very susceptible to Urinary Tract Infections, bladder and kidney problems, which can all be triggered by dehydration. 

Of course, the best way to prevent, detect  and treat dehydration in older adults is to encourage more fluid intake. Hydration can often be something we forget about, but with some of the issues listed above, it’s imperative that older adults in care are encouraged to drink more in any way possible. Tips you can try include:

If you are someone caring for an elderly person and you’re concerned about dehydration, keep a log of fluid intake. You can also make note of bathroom trips, diet, mood and anything else that may be affected by their hydration levels. 

Overall, water plays an amazing role in the healthy functioning of our bodies, from assisting the heart in efficiently pumping blood around our bodies, to flushing out toxins from our liver and other organs. Drinking water has a huge range of health benefits including giving you more energy, improving skin, weight loss and it can even reduce your risk of heart attack. 

To find out more about how Nourish can help you track and monitor things such as fluid intake, book a demo today! 

As the Coronavirus pandemic swept the globe and hit the UK earlier in March this year, care homes were put under more strain than they ever have before. Working to ease the pressure on the NHS, many care organisations have and continue to act as an overspill for hospitals when they get too busy. This has meant taking on patients who potentially were still infectious with coronavirus, as demand for beds soared across the UK. We take a look at Coronavirus in care homes, and how care has been managed in cases of Covid-19. 

Care teams have felt they’ve been let down by the government, being told they shouldn’t need to work any differently, even once Covid-19 had hit the UK. There has been an overall shortage of PPE (personal protective equipment), but care teams were being told by suppliers that the NHS took priority. 

Care homes usually implement what is known as “barrier nursing” when someone contracts a virus. This is where the person is isolated and new gloves, mask, paper towels etc will be used for each and every patient. However, with the realisation that Covid-19 could often be asymptomatic, and without antibody tests readily available, this posed a problem for managing Coronavirus in care homes. Combine that with the sudden influx of patients from the NHS, the lack of PPE stock and such close quarters within care homes, for many it felt like they were set up to fail. 

Many care workers have reported full floors of homes being wiped out by this silent killer, leaving staff devastated and terrified for their own safety, too. 

The facts and figures of Coronavirus in care homes

On the 15th May 2020 the statistics on Covid-19 related deaths in the UK care sector was released. Between the period of 2nd March and 1st May 2020, there have been 12,526 deaths involving Covid-19, which is said to be 27.3% of all deaths of care home residents. 

Coronavirus in care homes was the leading cause of death in male residents and second leading cause of death in women, after Dementia and Alzheimer’s, which was also the main pre-existing condition found amongst Coronavirus deaths.

Figures have been taken from the Office for National Statistics, published on 15th May 2020.

Are outbreaks of Covid-19 inevitable in care homes?

Covid-19 is highly risky for people living with multiple pre-existing conditions, is highly infectious, and many care teams  lack the means to closely monitor and track potential symptoms of the virus amongst everyone in their care. By the time the government had addressed the nation on the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, many lives had already been lost as the virus found its way into care settings. It is generally accepted that hospital discharges of untested patients who moved into care homes increased the risk of contracting the virus by other residents.

And in addition to this, self-isolation measures led to sudden staffing shortages, with many homes  having no chance but to bring in agency staff, meaning care workers are moving from home to home, once again increasing the risk of transmission. 

For the homes that have been successful in managing an outbreak, this is largely due to a proactive approach to closely monitoring and managing symptoms and suspected cases of Covid-19 and essentially doing everything possible to stop it in its tracks. 

Contact tracing

It is advised that carers should only work in one home while this pandemic is still ongoing and daily temperature checks should be carried out. All contact should be treated as close contact during the pandemic, and staff should be supported if they need to isolate after contact with a confirmed Covid case. Care facilities need to emphasise that staff will not be penalised and should not come to work when they are not feeling 100% even if there is a staff shortage. All care workers should be encouraged to report if they are feeling unwell and remain at home if they are showing symptoms. Testing should be arranged for these members of staff – there is now a government service dedicated to conduct testing in care homes (https://www.gov.uk/apply-coronavirus-test-care-home) which in time is expected to allow everyone in a care home to be tested.

Strict isolation policies

Carers should be segregated and only work with either suspected/confirmed residents with Covid-19, or those who are not infected and have clear signage as to who is in isolation and who is not. 

There needs to be a strict isolation policy for anyone showing symptoms or suspected to have symptoms, including 14 day isolation for anyone being transferred from another home or facility, plus testing for these residents where possible. Residents who are isolating should do so even for meal times and all non-essential travel outside the home should be cancelled. Care teams must ensure all immunizations are up to date.

Be aware of potential asymptomatic residents 

If transmission in a care home is suspected, then testing those who have potentially come into contact with the virus could highlight asymptomatic patients who would have otherwise gone undetected, thus causing a larger outbreak and more potential fatalities. 

How Nourish is helping care homes to closely monitor and manage the spread of Covid-19

At Nourish, we have created digital protocols for managing Covid-19 across care teams and people receiving care and support: our Covid-19 Trackerallows care homes to record, track and monitor symptoms and cases of Coronavirus within each care team. 

The protocol includes:

Nourish has also launched a free version of a Covid-19 tracker. This tracker can be accessed from any web browser, it’s free of charge, and you do not need to be a Nourish customer to use it. The tracker will allow you to track cases of infections across people in your care as well as your staff by closely monitoring symptoms and other factors. You can record:

Nourish has also been working with the NHS to enable anonymised data to be shared helping towards getting a better understanding of this pandemic across care providers. If you would like to find out more and sign up for the tracker, click here.

In addition to this, during the Covid-19 outbreak, Nourish has also enabled: 

For further reading:

Nourish’s Head of Customer Experience, Daniel Hollingworth, talks about the importance of a good night’s sleep, and what can be done to improve your quality of sleep as well as the people you care for. 

What keeps you up at night? Perhaps it’s a weak bladder, or the traffic from the street outside. For me it’s more than one cup of coffee a day and a young child who doesn’t seem to need sleep at all.

While the odd bad night’s sleep is normal for many of us, regular disruption to sleep can affect our immune systems, making us more susceptible to illness. Other side effects of poor-quality sleep include sluggishness and slower brain function. This is why monitoring sleep patterns and trends is essential within a care environment, it can help us pinpoint areas for improvement and understand what it is that could be affecting sleep. But how to get better sleep?

Quality sleep is a combination of Rapid Eye Movement (REM sleep) and Non-REM (deep sleep), that allows for rest, rejuvenation and even solidifying memories. REM sleep is also essential for emotional and mental health. Sleep cycles take around 90 minutes, and you ideally want to have at least four of five cycles per night. The average person needs a recommended 7-9 hours of sleep, with the ideal amount sitting around the 8-hour mark.

In a typical care environment, night checks are the norm, and waking state is recorded, and anyone else who appears to be sleeping is recorded as asleep. Although this gives an ok understanding of how much the person has slept or remained awake, it doesn’t actually look at the quality of their sleep.

With a wealth of technology available such as wearables and monitors, we are now able to track sleep quality with great accuracy. When you think of sleep tracking, people tend to think of fitness bands for the wrist, but there are a lot of affordable trackers available, from bedside table noise sensors, under mattress sensors and even wearable rings, these devices can all assess and manage sleep with convenience and comfort.

Everything gets better with a good night’s sleep!

It has been shown that the regularity of your sleep is just as important as the amount of sleep you get at night. It is always better for your health to get regular sleep than to binge on sleep at the weekends, for example. We all feel more alert after a good night’s sleep, but when sleep deprived, the brain has a 40% reduction in capacity to learn.

Research being conducted by Jonathon Cedernaes from Uppsala University in Sweden suggests that sleepless nights can create an increase in an Alzheimer’s related protein called ‘tau’, suggesting a link between poor sleep patterns and more complicated health issues.

Good quality sleep is what boosts our immune system to help fight off disease, so when our sleep is compromised, so is our health. One of the most important factors in ensuring flu vaccines work is to ensure you’re looking after your immune system. Lack of sleep means your body may not be able to create enough antibodies to fight off the virus, therefore resulting in a higher probability of getting flu.

Fortunately, there are many ways we can improve our sleep quality. Many care environments now encourage caffeine free hot drinks, and for good reason. In one study it was found that consuming caffeine six hours prior to bedtime reduces sleep time by one hour. So whether you’re looking to boost your own sleep patterns or wanting to improve sleep in elderly residents you support,  a simple change such as switching to decaf can make a difference.

This doesn’t sound that significant until you compare it to further research which found that heart attacks increase by 24% when the clocks go forward in spring at daylight saving time. However, when they go back in autumn, heart attack cases decrease by 21%. This really shows what a difference an hour of sleep can make.

So that swap to decaffeinated drinks really could be a life saver.

Drinking enough fluid is very important and many of the people we support have fluid targets in place for this very reason. Try to drink consistently throughout the day rather than trying to hit your fluid intake in the latter half of the day. The more fluid you drink at the end of the day the more likely you are to make that bathroom trip, breaking your sleep cycle. This also correlates with falls during the night.

Finally, one of the best ways to encourage quality sleep is to increase physical activity. Not only does exercise reduce stress, it has been shown to reset sleep/wake cycles by increasing then decreasing body temperature which triggers tiredness a few hours later.

Better sleep habits and getting good quality sleep is essential in ensuring the body and mind rest, repair and prepare for the next day. Do you monitor your sleep or carry out sleep assessments on those you support to help get better quality sleep in care? Let us know by leaving a comment below

According to the latest report published by Skills for Care, there are currently an estimated 1.49 million people working in adult social care across the UK. Everyday these carers make a significant difference to the lives of those they support. Often delivering so much more than just Health and Social care; developing strong relationships, providing companionship and in general improving the well-being of those they work with.

However, this skilled and unique position doesn’t come without its challenges, particularly in today’s difficult economic climate. It can be physically, mentally and emotionally demanding, so it is important for carers to take time out and focus on their own well-being. This isn’t always easy though, which is why it’s important for us as a society to take a step back and acknowledge the great work that is being delivered, and give something back to those who give so much to others.

On the 4 September, to celebrate the amazing work that carers deliver day in day out, the National Association of Care & Support Workers (NACAS), will be holding its second ‘Professional Care Workers Day’.

The national event, which is free to attend, will be held in London and will focus on the theme of ‘Well-being’. The aim of the day is to make carers feel special and help them to focus on their own physical and mental well-being. The day will offer free consultations and workshops with physiotherapists, psychologists, nutritionists, beauty and massage therapists, money and career advice, along with more ways to help care workers look after themselves and feel better.

According to the oxford dictionary well-being is the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy’. It is no surprise that our well-being can be affected, positively or negatively, by various different factors. Knowing what these factors are means that we can try and do more of the things that increase our positive well-being and less of the things that negatively affect it.

As we are all different our well-being will be effected in different ways, however there are certain things we can try to improve it:

As a carer, looking after your own well-being is just as important as helping to look after the well-being of those you support. Taking some time out to focus on yourself can have a significant impact on your overall physical, mental and emotional health. When we feel good in ourselves it often has a knock-on effect for those we interact with. So, take that time to make yourself a cuppa tea and just focus on yourself, get out for a nice brisk walk or get that early night you’ve been promising yourself.

If you’re carer or a provider who wants to celebrate the great work being delivered and are interested in taking advantage of the free services on offer at the Professional Care Workers Day, you can register here. If not you can still shout about and recognise those who make a difference every day on social media using the #ProfessionalCareWorkersDay hash tag.