Imagine having another 8 minutes of social interaction a day

CMM reports that “Just ten minutes of social interaction a day improves wellbeing in dementia care”, according to a study by researchers at University of Exeter Medical School, King’s College London and the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). “The Wellbeing and Health for people with Dementia (WHELD) programme trained care home staff to increase social interaction from two minutes a day to ten, combined with a programme of personalised care. It involves simple measures such as talking to residents about their interests and involving them in decisions around their care.”

This is important work by the universities and SCIE, but how heartbreaking that a study is required to prove the need to people with dementia to have just ten minutes a day of social interaction, and that previously they could expect just two. What would the wellbeing and health of people with dementia be like if they received an hour a day of social interaction? What would any our wellbeing be like if we could look forward to just ten?

This is why we need socially-based models of support like Shared Lives and Homeshare, and why people consistently report that they are happier and healthier within them. We need as much investment in researching the groundbreaking impacts of these smaller, social models, as we have currently into tweaking existing models which can seem to offer people so little.