People in and around Bristol are enjoying newly developed sessions for people living with dementia, as part of a Chinese Community Wellbeing Society (CCWS) project.
CCWS, created in 1989, supports the health and social care needs of the Chinese speaking community across south-west England through a range of services.
Among them is a free helpline and a replacement care service.
A Dementia Support Hub is also available for carers from East and South-east Asian communities.
Tailored services
Tailoring its services is vitally important to CCWS and the latest sessions were no exception. They were created in tandem with people with dementia.
‘Our project comes under the Dementia Health Integration Team of Bristol Health Partners,’ says Emily Choi at CCWS.
‘It’s called Dementia Arts Intervention, but “art” can be music, art therapy, gentle exercises like qigong – anything that people with dementia would enjoy.
‘We’re just one of the partners delivering the programme to see how arts can help improve the wellbeing of those living with dementia.
‘The activities are very much based upon discussions with people from the East and South-east Asian community. We collated all their feedback and they decided they would like gentle exercises.’
Project co-facilitator Kelly Zhang says people can take part in the sessions even if they don’t enjoy painting or drawing.
‘Probably you think art would just be drawing,’ she said, ‘But maybe a few of them are not Picassos and think, “Well I can’t do that.” These exercises are more meaningful to them.’
