Sunshine Welfare Action Mission
Experience & Reflection
Here are my reflections about my experience during this service learning
Before the Visit
Before the actual visit to the Sunshine Welfare Action Mission nursing home, I was actually very anxious and nervous. I was afraid that there will be a language barrier which will cause me and my partner to be awkward with out elderly or be unable to communicate well. However, I was also excited as I will be able to meet new people and understand things from their perspective. Moreover, the elderly are people who has much more experience in life as compared to myself which made me realise that I can get valuable advice from them. Another feeling I actually had was that I was really looking forward to the visit. The main reason being that it will be a new and enriching experience that will allow me to learn more. In order to prepare ourselves for the actual visit, we actually came up with our expectations of how we want the visit to go and also what we want to learn from this visit. Something like what kind of knowledge or experience do we want to gain from this visit. Then, from there, we shaped the questions that we will want to ask the elderly and also planned the kind of activities which will let us achieve our goals and reach our expectations. My partner and I actually came up with questions which we would like to ask our elderly during the visit. Questions ranging from light questions like how does he spend the day to more sensitive questions like things regarding his family. While coming up with the questions, me and my partner also thought of questions that will actually either benefit us or allow us to get to know from an elderly's perspective and how they think. For example, what does he think about the young people nowadays and what does he think about our current technology advances. Other than preparing the questions that we are planning to ask the elderly, we also thought of games and activities that we could do to make the elderly feel more comfortable and also enjoy himself. We first started off with thinking about what the elderly needs before proceeding to decide on what kind of activities we can do to make the elderly feel at ease or to improve any issues that they have. Issues they have like having a slow reaction speed was taken into account and we tried to think of ways we can cater to that need when choosing a game for him to play. We actually thought of bring board games like Chinese Chess which is a popular game among the elderly.
First Visit
I was gripped with nervousness and also excitement as I proceeded inside to join the elderly for their music therapy lesson. We started off with trying to engage with the elderly by singing and doing hand movements along together with them. Although it was awkward at first due to most of us not knowing what to do, we eventually became more open and started to try to make the experience and music singing much more enjoyable for them too. By engaging in the activity ourselves, I realised how the experience becomes more fun if I enjoy the music lesson together with them and not just standing one corner and not taking part. After the music therapy was finished, we were then assigned to our own respective elderly. Luckily for my partner and I, we got an elderly who also knows English other than Chinese and Hokkien. It was a pleasant surprise to us as his English is quite fluent due to the fact that he came from an English School (which he told us about) and this ensured that we did not have a language barrier and can communicate with him easily. We begin by asking questions regarding his personal life and how he feels staying there. Fortunately, he was quite open with us and shared many different things regarding his past jobs and experience and also his current lifestyle, including even details of his own family. When engaging in a conversation with him, I realised how my partner and I did not only stick to the questions we came up with but also other questions that we became curious about while talking to our elderly. There was not much problem for my partner and I as he only has very mild dementia and he could remember almost everything as seen from how he is able to easily say and describe his previous job, what he did in the past and also about his family. It made it really happy as he was open with us, being willing to share much more than we thought he would and relieved as he did not feel uncomfortable when we were having a conversation with him. Throughout the whole conversation with him, we managed to find out many things about him and his lifestyle which to us was a big accomplishment.
After this first session, I felt that there are actually a few things we can do to make the next session an even better experience for him. Although many other groups will think about questioning the elderly based on more specific things that will jog their memories, I felt that for my elderly, it will be sufficient to get him to talk about his likes and dislikes. As my partner and I were able to learn many things about him, we know what kind of things he is more willing to talk about or more interested in and maybe for the next session, we will ask him questions that will steer more towards those things. We also realised how whenever he talks about a particular family member, he will tear up and therefore, we decided to not ask too much regarding that family member as it would be quite rude to him even though he is very open. Instead, we thought that we should ask him things that will make him recollect happy moments in his life. One thing I actually noticed while my partner and I was having a conversation with the elderly is that the conversation is mostly one sided where we ask him a questions and he answers with his own experience before we link it to another question and ask him again, with the cycle repeating. I felt that this type of conversation is too one sided and that for the next session, we should also share our own experience and knowledge too. This gives him a chance to understand things from our perspective too.
As this was our first session, it is inevitable that we would be very awkward our elderly and thus I thought that for the next session, to make up for this, I should show much more enthusiasm and make him feel loved, cared for and to feel my warmth which is something the elderly wants (based on what the person who brought us around the nursing home said). In addition, I should take the initiative and go up and start a conversation with him/them. Other than these, I can make him feel more comfortable. Although he is open to us from the beginning, it will be better for us if he can be even more comfortable with us. Moreover, I have to ensure that I should not focus on the "work" I have to do but instead, I should make memories with them and also learn from them. I want to become someone who the elderly will remember about and speak of me with fond memories. Finally, we can help him by also invoking interest in him in finding new things to work with. For example, making him interested in some IPad games or even simple hobbies that he can carry out in his free time. With this, it ensures that his mind stays healthy and that there is something that makes him happy while doing it.
Second Visit
Before the visit to the nursing home, my partner and I actually prepared some games that will be useful in helping our elderly. The both of us did quite a bit of research and managed to come up with quite a few interesting games. We found out that there are actually some games which is catered to the elderly and can be useful if we present the game to them. Although there are some games which will really cater to the elderly, we found some games that was too fast paced for them. However, we still kept the game as we felt that the concept is simple and it may increase the action speed of our elderly. Due to the fact that we felt our elderly has a much faster reaction time as compared to the other elderly, we thought that even if we give a much more fast paced game, he would be able to handle it. Therefore, we decided to let him play Fruit Ninja. Other than the IPad games, my partner also brought the Chinese Chess as we felt that it is more likely our elderly will enjoy that game as it is a more traditional game which is popular among the elderly. Moreover, it keeps their mind thinking as they have to strategise and think ahead which helps in ensuring that they have consistent brain activity which caters to one of the needs that we had listed down before the first visit. Other than these games, we decided that we should be more comfortable around him and that our conversation should be two way instead of one and that we will ask the questions much more casually as compared to the first week. This will make him feel more comfortable and also breaks the ice between the both of us.
During the second visit, once our partner and I saw our elderly, we immediately took the initiative to walk up to him and start a conversation. Although at first it was a mess as we are unsure what to do, after getting the colouring tools, we started to urge our elderly to colour. He told us that he does not like colouring as much as singing but we still convinced him to colour the picture as we thought that this would be a fun activity. (We honestly felt like colouring too). We started to have a conversation with him while he was colouring and my partner even joined him in this colouring activity as she was itching to colour. I felt that this bonded us much closer as we engaged in casual conversations and actually laughed quite a lot together. For me however, I was also taking care of another elderly aside from my own assigned one. I assume that the pair in charge of this other elderly did not turn up and as she was sitting beside me, I decided to take care of her too and make her feel comfortable. This led to me giving my split attention to both my own elderly and the other elderly. During the colouring activity, she constantly asked me to pick the colours for her and I did so. Initially, I was really awkward as I did not know which language she knows and even when I asked her questions in English or Chinese, I am unable to decipher her reply. She usually mumbles and does not have clear pronunciation of the words which caused me to be confused most of the time as I can't get what she is saying. I think that this other elderly has quite a serious case of dementia as she asked for my names several times (about 3-4 times) although I introduced myself quite a few times. She would also constantly ask me to bring her home and forgets why she is here in the first place. Honestly, I was not annoyed that I sometimes have to repeat myself but more of being uncertain as I do not know what I am supposed to do or what I can do. I am unable to hold a proper conversation with her as she will start mumbling about things and although I leaned in quite close to her, I still can't make out what she is saying. Throughout the colouring activity however, I tried my best to take care of her and advice her on the colours she should use for certain objects. To me, this was an eye opening experience as my own elderly did not have the problem of such a serious case of dementia and thus this is actually something very new to me. I can proudly say that I have done the best I could to make her feel comfortable as I even stepped out of my comfort zone so that she would not feel uncomfortable with me. After the colouring activity ended, she was constantly telling me to bring her home and after asking one of the nurses there, she told me to just bring the elderly over to where the television is and after bringing her there and waving goodbye to her, I went back to take care of my own elderly with my partner. At that moment, my partner and I had already introduced the game Fruit Ninja to him and indeed as we thought, he was able to keep up with the fast paced of the game and was able to carry out the instructions without much difficulty. After a while, he got bored of the game and thus my friend suggested playing Chinese Chess. He said that he does play it and thus we went ahead with playing it. It started with my friend being the opponent of our elderly and it turned out to be quite enjoyable. Although I was unable to take part or get my turn as time was running short, I still thought together with them and honestly, it was a very engaging game as we were talking among ourselves while the game was being played. At the end of the session. when we asked our elderly how he thought today went, even he too, thought it was very enjoyable which made me felt proud and also heartwarming.
After going through this session, I felt that I have carried out the actions that I had planned to after the reflection during my first visit. Things like taking the initiative and approaching first or even making our elderly feel more comfortable was carried out by me. However, there is always room for improvement. As on one of our next sessions we would have to set up a booth and let the elderly play the games that we have chosen for them, I felt that in order to get to know which kinds of games will be enjoyable to them, I need to first let our elderly play the games that we have currently already decided on. Due to the fact that only one game was played by our elderly and that it is actually too fast paced, I think that we should let the elderly play the rest of the games and see which games will be appropriate for them by observing whether our own elderly enjoyed the games that we have picked out. There was also another thing that was discussed with my partner which is other than mobile games, what other activities can we carry out. After having a deep discussion about the different possible activities, we thought that maybe we can make use of the micro bits that we have to let the elderly play with it. However, we currently are not as confident that we can make the activity good enough and thus we are just placing that thought at the back of our minds. All in all, I felt that this session was indeed a very meaningful one as the elderly was more open with us and willing to share even more personal stuff and even casual topics were started by either us or him. Even saying casual things like how he likes a certain type of food and us continuing with talking about the food we like in our school was one of the few conversation topics which I feel actually brought us closer. Therefore, I personally feel that me and my partner has actually improved a lot as compared to our first session and that we should continue doing so for the following sessions.
Reflection on Mobile Application (Booth)
After conducting much research, the mobile application that my partner and I have decided on using for our booth is a game called “Lively Silver”. In this application, there is a total of 8 different games and each game serves its own purpose. Although we only picked out one game to be used for our booth, I felt that the other games were equally useful and will still explain more about them. All of these games actually helps elderly with dementia as it focuses on jogging the memories, making their brains active and also taking the factors of their daily lives into consideration. Furthermore, this game actually has an option that allows the user to either view the game in English or Chinese which is a big help as most of the older generation is more familiar with Chinese which makes the explaining much easier.
The first game, Food Match, requires matching 2 of the same food together. Moreover, common Singaporean food like You Tiao, Laksa or even Fresh Milk is used which is actually more relatable for the elderly as those are food that they eat or have always seen. The next game, Match 10, requires the elderly to match 2 poker cards correctly which sums up to 10. It requires only simple math and moreover, the poker cards used are actually something that is familiar to them and they may use the same way they calculate the cards when they are gambling for this game too. Another game, Melody Quest, requires the elderly to press the color buttons that were lighted by following the sequence that was shown. This is a different form of memorizing which is equally useful. I can thus conclude that these games helps to keep the elderlies’ minds healthy as it requires memorizing and also calculating.
The next 3 games: Shopping Fun, Flag the Bus and also Road Safety actually helps in ensuring the elderlies know and remember what to do as these are part of their daily lives. Shopping Fun requires the elderly to click the correct items that is requested on the shopping list. This ensures that they can accurately identify the corresponding correct items even in their daily lives. Flag The Bus is a game which requires the elderly to flag down the correct bus that the game wants. This will help them greatly in their normal day-to-day lives as it tests whether they know when to flag a bus down and also be clear of which bus they are trying to take. Finally, Road Safety requires the elderly to press the walk button only when the traffic light turns green. It guarantees that the elderly knows when is the right time to cross the road so as to prevent any accidents during the daily lives of the elderly.
The next 2 games, Dollar Sense and Spot the Coins are money related and I feel these games are extremely important. Both of these games requires the elderly to match the note/coin to the corresponding box which states its value. My partner and I have decided on using Dollar Sense as our main game as we felt that it is important for the elderly to correctly differentiate the notes. By being clear of the value of each individual notes/coins, it ensures that they will not face any problems if they are required to pay for something.
Whenever an elderly comes over to our booth, I would present the Dollar Sense game to him/her and explain the rules to him/her. What I have observed through the various elderly who plays this game is that although some are aware of the value of notes, most are confused as to which note represents which value. For example, there were a few elderlies who mistook the $2 note as $5 which caused the placing of the notes to be incorrect. After observing these results, it is actually apparent that this game is important in letting the elderly be aware of the values of the notes correctly. Being aware of the value of the Singapore Dollars can ensure that they are less susceptible to dishonest people who wants to extort more money from them. In addition, it also allows the family members of the elderly to have a peace of mind as they can be certain that the elderly is able to pay for his own items without being cheated of his money by paying extra. For example, if the elderly is required to pay a total of $2 but gave $10 instead and his change being only $5, it is apparent that the cashier is being dishonest and cheating him of his money. However, if the elderly himself is not certain as to whether he is being cheated on, he will think that the change given is actually correct. Although this may be a small matter in the eyes of some people, if this happens way too often, the amount of money lost will accumulate to quite a huge sum. This is why it is important for the elderly to be sure of the correct values of the notes.
I personally feel that this mobile application has many uses which caters to different parts of an elderly’s lifestyle and is extremely useful in reducing the problems that an elderly may face. Even though this application was chosen by my partner and I mainly to help the elderly with dementia, I felt that it was also useful for other elderlies too. It keeps the minds of the elderlies active and moreover, the game is at a level/speed that is just right for them to play without it being too difficult. Therefore, I feel that it is actually essential for the elderlies to learn and jog their memories about the right procedures they should take in their daily lives. After more self-reflecting, I realized the importance of these mobile applications that will greatly enhance and improve the lives of both the elderlies and their families and thus I felt that I should really learn from this experience and do my best in helping out. Since I already learning about IT-related things, I think I should contribute to the society in my own way by developing an application that will improve the lives of a certain group of people.