Category Archives: Helpful Articles
Preparing for Halloween in Your London Retirement Community
Adjusting to life in a London care home or London retirement community can be a difficult transition. At Sharon Village Care Homes, we find that the holidays can make this transition tougher for both the families and residents. It starts with Thanksgiving, moves through Halloween, takes the cake with Christmas, and the festivities finalize with New Year’s Eve.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. Christmas is a couple months away, so let’s prepare for Halloween first. There are some ways to make the transition a little easier for both residents and family members. Sharon Village Care Homes tries to make the holiday season as comforting and loving as possible with events in our London retirement community, but here are a few other things you can do to adjust easier.
Halloween bashes
For Halloween, a few of the events offered by Sharon Village Care Homes are: Spooky Pub, Pumpkin Carving, Monster Mash Maple Sugar Band, Halloween Trivia, Murder Mystery “Who did it”, Arbour Glen Costume Parade, Pumpkin muffins, and A Mystery in the Making.
If you want to help your family adjust to Halloween alongside your resident relative, have your own Halloween festivities. Dress up the kids in your family in their Halloween costumes and visit your resident family member. If you’re the resident being visited, have candy waiting for the little ones in your family.
Decorate your room
Who says you can’t decorate your room when you live in a London retirement community? This year you can go all out! Decorate your London retirement community room with homemade crafts and designs. If you’ve got a costume, why not decorate your room to match it? For instance, create Frankenstein’s laboratory if you’re dressing as Frankenstein’s monster or his Bride.
Thanksgiving festivities
Thanksgiving has passed this year, but Sharon Village Care Homes helps residents adjust every year. There are several services held for a variety of congregations and religions. Thanksgiving is a very spiritual day for many people, and the largest transition can be not being able to go to their own service. Sharon Village Care Homes wants to make sure that the spiritual lives of our London care home and London retirement community residents can be fulfilled.
The most important part of the holidays is to keep life and routine as normal as possible. That adjustment is much easier if life has remained similar to before you moved into the London retirement community or London care home. If this happens, all you’re adjusting to is a higher quality of care and new surroundings!
Halloween is a great time to get to know the people in your London retirement community, if you haven’t already. At Sharon Village Care Homes, the fun has only just begun.
How to Personalize Your Retirement Home Suite
Your new retirement village is your home now, and should feel as such. Creating a home involves more than simply getting to know others in the village, though that is important. But creating a home means personalizing your space, as well. Look at your London retirement home suite as a blank canvas, waiting patiently for a drop of colour. You may not be able to paint your room, but that doesn’t mean you can’t spice up the décor to make it feel more welcoming to your tastes.
Adding personality is more than putting up pictures. At Sharon Village Care Homes, we want our residents to feel as comfortable and cozy as possible. We encourage you to show off your unique style to the rest of the retirement village. Here are a few of our favourite ways to do so.
Cork art
It’s a sad fact that corks are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Why not keep the memory of great nights with good friends alive with some simple cork art? Collect corks from each bottle of wine – or ask friends and family to do so – and fill up a vase with them. Put flowers (fake or real) in the vase through the center of the corks.
If you want to add even more spunk to the vase, dye some of the corks. Grab a handful or two of the corks you’ve collected and dunk them in food or clothes dye. By dying a couple, you’ll add a spark of colour peaking through the cork brown as a surprise for visitors of your retirement village room.
Origami cranes
Living in a London retirement home gives you back the opportunity to do activities for fun. The extra time means that you can enjoy the activities you love, while also learning new hobbies. This is great news for your room in Sharon Village Care Homes! Origami is a classic art that soothes your mind, puts your hands to work, and creates a stunning piece at the end.
If you already know origami, or if you think it’s time to learn, why not put that to work for your decorations? An origami crane chandelier offers a personal touch and beauty to your room. All you need is origami paper, string, and a wooden hoop from which to hang the strings of cranes.
Get inventive! What else can you make out of origami for your Sharon Village Care Homes room? Each holiday may call for different origami decorations, such as wreaths and flowers.
Book art
If you’re an avid reader, the thought of tearing up a book can be a cause of extreme upset. But with the right book, and the right art piece, anything is possible. Book art is a beautiful way to reveal your love of literature. Taking a regular object and coating it with pages of an old, disused paperback will make a gorgeous bookend for your retirement village room.
Old pages can also be used to create origami, or to make holiday cards, wreathes, flowers, picture frames, and whatever else you can think of! All you need are a few base objects to decorate with the pages.
Make your new London retirement home room into a cozy oasis. To find out more about Sharon Village Care Homes, visit our website.
Benefits of Outdoor Activity at Sharon Village Care Homes
We all know that spending time outside is beneficial to our health. After all, people were created in the realms of nature, and therefore should reap some rewards from returning to our roots. But why is it that human beings are healthier when they spend more time outside? And is this belief really true? At Sharon Village Care Homes, we believe that outdoor activity is an essential part of maintaining health after entering a long-term care home or retirement village. Outdoor time can seriously affect – positively! – a resident’s quality of life, health, and mental well being. Not convinced? Read on for reasons why outdoor activities will benefit you before and after entering a London long-term care home.
Increased happiness
People who spend a considerable amount of time outdoors are actually happier than those who don’t. Light, and sunlight in particular, inspires a happier mood than darkness, while the physical exercise of walking around triggers endorphins. Going for just an hour a day of walking around your retirement village property can exponentially raise your sense of satisfaction and contentment.
Boost physical health
It’s well known that sunlight is an invaluable source of vitamin D. Increasing your vitamin D intake can prevent and fight off osteoporosis, cancer, heart attacks, and depression. Walking around or even just resting in the sun can beautifully supplement the care you receive in a London long-term care home.
It has also been proven that natural light can help patients who are recovering from surgery or other ailments heal more rapidly. The natural light and vistas around Sharon Village Care Homes can help reduce the number of medications required, while also dramatically decreasing stress caused by recovery.
Improve your concentration
Natural surroundings encourage more concentrated focus. For whatever reason, the great outdoors enhance a person’s ability to concentrate and focus on single tasks. If you’re having a tough time focusing, try working on the project or hobby in your long-term care home courtyard, or spending time outdoors before attempting to work on that project again.
Reasons behind this increased concentration are not entirely know, but it could have to do with decreased restlessness. Think of long, harsh winters when you’re trapped inside for extended periods of time. Focus and concentration becomes difficult because you feel restless from the confinement. When you leave your home and join a retirement village or long-term care home, spend time outside to prevent a feeling of restlessness due to the transition.
Live an active life
At Sharon Village Care Homes, we understand the importance of an active lifestyle for both retirement village and long-term care home residents. Outdoor activity is a key way to gain an active lifestyle. People who spend more time outdoors are more likely to get exercise. When you leave the building, you leave behind the temptation to sit the day away.
The best years are still to come with Sharon Village Care Homes. Find out how your lifestyle will change and improve with our London long-term care home indoor and outdoor amenities.
Benefits of a Private Earls Court Room
When it comes to debating between private versus standard rooms in long-term care or retirement communities, there are a lot of factors to debate. As with most other things, whether or not you desire a private room is going to depend on your own needs and preferences. Sharon Village Care Homes wants to make sure each resident gets exactly the care that he or she needs. Our Earls Court Village offers a number of private rooms so that you have options when you’re making this important transition. But before you pick, you’ll want to know the pros and cons. Read on to find out more about private vs. standard room accommodation at Earls Court Village in Sharon Village Care Homes.
Removed from infection
One of the largest problems with shared rooms and dormitory style accommodations is that once one resident gets an infection or contagious illness, it spreads like wildfire over the entire dormitory. When you have a private room, you’re much less likely to contract the contagious illness.
Increased Confidentiality
It goes without saying that a private room is simply more private. When you don’t need to share a room, all of your visits with your family have a larger degree of intimacy. Family and friends feel more comfortable, more welcome, and are more likely to visit regularly when there isn’t the curious eyes and ears of a roommate. Your loved ones also have an easier time of planning visits, because you won’t need to go through the hassle of trying to organize family visits with your roommate to avoid overlap.
Confidentiality is important in the medical field, and is something that we value at Sharon Village Care Homes. Private rooms allow you the opportunity to consult with your doctors and nurses one on one, exclusive of any outside ears. This space offers you the chance to divulge your information to whom you want, when you want, in the manner you want without worrying about anyone listening while you’re discussing your health.
Greater feeling of comfort
It can be difficult to create a home out of your long-term care room when someone else has already made it his or her own home before you got there. Having a private room means that you get to decorate and customize the room to your own preferences. Just as it would be with moving into a new apartment, moving into a new room offers you the opportunities to create a home in Earls Court.
Find your economic balance
Unfortunately, the major con of private rooms for most residents of retirement communities is the price. Like any form of accommodation, one person living alone is going to have to pay more than two people sharing a space. Some residents find the price to be daunting.
When you’re making the decision to move into your Sharon Village Care Homes accommodation, you need to weigh the pros and cons of a single room. At Earls Court, we recommend choosing what will make you happy in your long-term care home over the cost considerations.
Talk to a health care professional at Earls Court in Sharon Village Care Homes to help make this transition smoother and simple. With Earls Court, the best years are still to come.
5 Things to Look for in the Right Retirement Community
Finding the right London retirement community can be a daunting experience. Moving out of your home into a care home isn’t a hasty decision made with an easy adjustment period. That’s why it’s important to find the best community to welcome you into your new stage of life. But with so many choices, how can you choose the right one? Sharon Village Care Homes has a couple of suggestions to keep in mind when you’re hunting for retirement homes.
- 1. Look for references
When being chosen for a job, university, or any other pivotal occupation change, applications are asked for references. So why not do the same of the London retirement community that may eventually be your home? Ask residents and inquire about residents’ families to use as reference points. Talk to them about their opinion of the care home, how the resident enjoys living there, and about its pros and cons. This is a great time to find out how your life may change – or not – after the big move.
- 2. Make an amenity checklist
What is crucial to you in your daily routine? What hobbies do you enjoy? What’s essential to maintaining a regular, healthy lifestyle? Answering these questions is a vital step in figuring out what you want from retirement homes.
From there, you can decide which London retirement community has the amenities that suit your needs. For instance, within the Sharon Village Care Homes community, we have offerings such as retail shops, multi-denominational chapels, libraries, cafes, housekeeping services, as well as both personal and coin-operated laundry services. At Sharon Village, we feel it to be of critical importance to keep life as normal and regular as possible.
- 3. Available activities and clubs
When you’ve moved into your chosen London retirement community, it’s important to begin to meet your neighbours and maintain an active and healthy lifestyle. Does your care home offer clubs? What activities are provided for residents? These are keystone qualities for retirement homes to be welcoming, homey, and fun.
- 4. Cleanliness check
Just as you wouldn’t move into a house without touring it first, you don’t want to choose a London retirement community without going on a tour of the facilities. Take a tour of the retirement homes you’re considering. While on your tour, ask to see the kitchen, and other facilities that aren’t normally displayed – such as stairwells, and minor hallways. The cleanliness of these less well-travelled areas will prove how clean and hygienic the facilities truly are on a regular basis.
During your tour is a great time to find the references required to fulfill the first point on this checklist.
- 5. Get all the details
While on your tour, why not ask if trial visits are allowed? Staying overnight for a day or two is the best way to find out if the home is a good match for you. Next see if there’s a monthly or weekly newsletter, and sign up to receive it in order to keep up to date.
Request menu samples, activity and club calendars, and a complete list of amenities and services from the home’s staff. This will allow you to peruse the retirement homes in your spare time without the presence of staff and residents. With a decision as significant as this one, it is necessary that you can consider and ponder in your own time.
Welcome in your new stage of life as the best stage with Sharon Village Care Homes. Request a tour today to see our gorgeous facilities, and inclusive community.
Long-Term Care
Retirement Homes
Adult Condominiums
