Little things can mean a lot for older deafblind people
Laura Bennett
In February, we held an event for people who commission or provide services for older people, and for people who make policy decisions about older people. It was about the themes in the White Paper, Caring for our Future, (independence, advice and information, quality, dignity and control), and how we could work together to help make these a reality for older deafblind people.
We provided information about deafblindness and simple things people could do to provide deafblind people with better services. We made sure they knew how their organisation or authority can work with Sense, and what Sense can offer them to support them in their work with deafblind people. We presented research and good practice, based on our work with deafblind people.
We were fortunate that three older deafblind people had agreed to share their experiences on film with members of the acquired deafblind team, which meant that we were able to watch these older people talking on a DVD on the day. This made a big impact on people.
The first person we heard from lives in a residential care home for older people, but no-one will really communicate very much with her, so this leaves her feeling very lonely and she has depression. She is safe, and well-fed, but not much else. I was struck by her saying that she doesn’t know the names of people in the “home” she lives in.
The second person we heard from, Esther, lives in her own home, and receives cost-effective (and relatively cheap!) support, which has a brilliant impact on her quality of life. We watched her going shopping with her communicator-guide, as well as her talking about what life is like before and after support, and what a difference it has made to her. You can view this video below.
It was really great to hear this, and I was particularly struck by two things, her communicator-guide telling her about a new flavour of yogurt drink, and helping her to put her food away in her fridge so that all the sell-by dates were in the right order.
These are things that hearing sighted people can easily take for granted, and while it’s not necessarily earth-shattering life-changing news to find out that your daily yogurt drink now comes in pineapple, it’s having little chats like that, part of the “everyday” stuff, that is important. And surely this is all part of dignity and control?
The third person had support from Sense to find a package of support that could have worked for him, but the support to help him with his direct payments was inaccessible, and so the support broke down.
As a result of the day, people who are interested in receiving more talks, training and information from Sense, which is a good way of starting to work together to get better results for deafblind people. Sense is planning to do more work to benefit older people, and work following this event will be a good start for that.
Related links
About deafblindness: older people
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