Staff discovers pumpkin can play role in supportive measures
Wednesday October 24, 2007 -- Michelle Strutzenberger
Staff at Pleasant Meadow Manor in Campbellford recently discovered a unique way to support a resident who tends to get agitated and act out.

“We have a resident who gets very frustrated and yells a lot,” says Barb McNiece, a nurse’s aide at the home, noting this resident was sometimes taken out of the dining room for her meals because she was obviously upsetting other residents.

Last week, a staff-member set a bright-orange pumpkin made out of cloth and stuffed with cotton-batten on the resident’s lap. The rest, as they say, is history.

McNiece was helping the resident with her meal that day and she was delighted to find her calm and responsive to eating. The two talked about the pumpkin throughout the meal and the resident ate all of her food, not something she did often.

The aide was so thrilled about the resident’s change in behaviour she told Susan Towns, nursing administrative services manager. The word spread quickly through the home that the pumpkin was effective in soothing the resident.

“We all use it now,” says McNiece, referring to the staff at the home.

At mealtimes, in the activity room, and in other areas of the home now the resident can be seen with the pumpkin on her lap.

“It seems to be keeping her mind off how she’s maybe feeling inside,” says McNiece. “She’s not yelling out all the time . . . She’s happy and relaxed.”

Other residents are benefiting from the calmer atmosphere as well, says the aide.

McNiece, along with the rest of the staff at the home, are receiving ongoing training in supportive measures, which is based on gentle, behavioural intervention approaches to calm resident agitation caused by dementia.

OMNI Health Care’s goal is to have 100 per cent of staff trained in supportive measures by the end of 2007. Through the process of “training the trainer,” over 50 supportive measures specialists are reaching out to all the staff in every OMNI home.