Care home exercise sessions get centenarian 'waving pom poms and swinging her legs'

Meaningful activities in care homes are vital for boosting residents’ health and wellbeing so it is good news that an increasing number of residential homes have their own activity coordinators.

These activity coordinators are often responsible for offering a whole range of activities. Therefore personalised exercise programmes such as Oomph! Wellness, which provide training and support to staff in care homes are invaluable.

Sue Revell, activity coordinator for Kenwith Castle care home in Devon, run by Care South, trained to be an Oomph instructor last year.

carehome.co.uk spoke to her about Oomph and the impact the exercise classes have.

Why did you decide to become an Oomph instructor?

My training in Exercise and Activities Leadership was organised through my company Care South last year, as part of their investment to drive a greater activity based culture through our homes, ensuring every resident has the best possible life with us.

What do you like about it?

It’s so much fun and we are seeing stories come out from people who didn’t do many things before. It’s exciting because you don’t know who is going to get involved each day.

How do Oomph sessions benefit residents?

My residents at Kenwith Castle are moving and flowing better. You see them walking more and chatting together, as they get to know each other better, which all contributes to the overall atmosphere in our home.

You can see as soon as I put on my Oomph t-shirt that their mood is lifted, they are happier and almost conga along the corridor as they know what to expect.

It also has a really positive impact on hydration and appetite – we always start the sessions with hot drinks and finish with a glass of squash and it all gets drunk.

One resident who joined the home recently, struggled to express herself clearly due to dementia. She now participates in the sessions, shaking her pompoms and has a ball. I tend to leave the music on after the session officially finishes and she will often stand up and dance. She has started smiling more and, because she’s more relaxed, we have started to get some conversation from her in words we can understand, which is just a joy.

Another lady, who is 102 years old, comes in, shakes her pompoms and swings her legs – I never thought we’d see her moving like that again.

What is a typical Oomph session?

Sometimes we follow the Oomph pre-planned session routines which are really helpful, but now the residents at Kenwith Castle know some of the moves, I get them to tell me their favourites and build a routine around those.

We often use themes, which can range from gardening and house work to tennis, at the beach, Disney and the Marathon.

How regularly do you run them?

I run a minimum of three sessions per week, with an average of 10 participants.

Why would you recommend Oomph to other care homes?

I would recommend Oomph sessions as they are fun and encourage people to exercise without realising it, and the sessions touch people in lots of different ways. From the co-ordinator point of view, it helps me plan and structure my activities – I was free-styling before Oomph came along and it has given me much more confidence. It focuses you on a person-centred, doing things in smaller groups, which we’re all more used to.

What qualities do you need to be an Oomph instructor?

You have to be able to go with the flow and feel confident with improvising, it brings out your inner child!

What impact do the Oomph sessions have?

One resident who doesn’t leave his room that often and usually finds it difficult to talk, really opened up through the Oomph sessions and we had a lovely conversation, prompted by the ‘Birdie Song’ playing! Somehow we got onto the subject of work and I found out he used to work for the Daily Mirror, so now I make sure I take a newspaper into him and we discuss the page layouts and print. Once he started conversing, he talked to me about his love of dancing and the rumba.

All of these things were triggered through a bit of music playing on the radio and it led on to other subjects, it was wonderful. I hadn’t had a conversation with him like that for a while, he’d been struggling, so it’s really good.

Music has a huge effect, especially if people struggle to speak, as they slowly relax and words just come out more easily. You can put the music on and sit and have a one-to-one sing along together.

Particularly with this gentleman, I will certainly be going back to him with more music and since he likes newspapers I’d bring that too. It’s just linking those things together for him. I always use the calendar as I plan the sessions, so that when the residents get their own activity sheet they are aware of what the day has in store.

When it was Pizza Day today on the Oomph calendar we made some in the morning. I was amazed that a few of the residents had never actually eaten a pizza. They were intrigued by the method of making the pizzas and had a choice of toppings so they really went for it. The food and tasting days are excellent. Some of the musical memory days are popular too, especially when we can tie them in with the residents.