When I first came, it was the setting that I'm accustomed to seeing in
long-term care. People sitting in boredom in front of a television with very
little interaction between staff and people who live here. My head aunt was
very vicious with the staff and patients in there. She would attack them.
Why she was lost to the point where she constantly reminded me "I have no home."
I don't feel like I'm going to a facility anymore,
it's just feel like a home. This program you know that they are not dead inside.
There's something inside of them. Butterfly program just pop. I have more
freedom to hug and to kiss, and I love it
but I see a miracle at work every day.
For every five years we live past age 65 our chances of developing dementia
double. Up to 80% of people living in Peel long-term care now could qualify
for a diagnosis of dementia and in the next five years the Region of Peel is
projected to have one of the highest rates of dementia in the province.
Dementia is the epidemic of our times. We do not have any cure for Alzheimer's or
dementia in general at this point.
Pacing, agitation, outbursts even
aggression result as a person's ability to communicate fails and their needs go
unmet including the need for engagement, companionship, affection.
As you walk through the halls, as you walk through the homes of the people who live here
you know that clinically we got it but there was always something missing.
In March of 2017 the Region of Peel partnered with Dementia Care Matters
from the UK for the first Ontario pilot of the Butterfly Household model of care.
At its core is the individual and a recognition that people with dementia
still have strong feelings, emotional connections to the lives they have lived
and they are still very much alive and living in the moment.
The shift started with language not tasks but moments, not patients - people, not a facility or
institution but a house, a home.
Staff members traded in their scrubs for regular clothes. They spent time learning
about the people in their care and then they began to fill the home with things
of meaning. Things with intimate connections to the people living here.
We had a number of people that would pace would pace
and by the dinner time these people were exhausted.
So we'd start to see responsive behaviors.
They'll move between the colors and they'll stop because of that sharp contrast.
It is about allowing people the ownership, the empowerment to do their work
but to do it with the human touch. To do it with their hearts and not just with their minds.
This is people life we're talking about.
Making them happy,
making them comfortable, making them feel loved.
Because they have dementia doesn't mean they're dead.
They're still alive.
They still need everything that they used to.
Everybody wants to be loved and respected, they
want to be busy and been doing meaningful things.
Quite often he comments on
you know I cannot play music the way I used to.
But you're still playing music
because what happens is that I sing and he plays.
They still have life. They still can laugh and talk to you.
Good conversations too.
Before that I just feel like communion just work at home but I feel as if I'm coming
to chat with my family.
When I see these individuals I find them to be in a calmer place. I find them to
be in a happier place.
It really brought the residents back to life,
it brought the staff back to life.
What we are establishing is a place that
they want to come to work
It is important to get this right because if we don't you must remember
that the statistic says that dementia will come and find us all.
I am not afraid of getting or live in a retirement home IF they're gonna have this program.
Everybody is so alive.
They're not just people that are left there to rot in the corner.
They're being actively involved, and that's wonderful,
that's what I would want.
You have no idea the joy. When I think about sometime I have to cry and say oh my God I have
seen with success in Butterfly.
These are people who have given so much to others
in terms of their family, our society. Why shouldn't they have the best quality of
life and I really think this model brings that out for them,
their families, staff and our sector