About Domiciliary Plus

At KASE Care, we’re proud to go above and beyond for our clients in every way we can. As part of our mission to deliver the very best levels of care, we’re rolling out a new programme: Domiciliary Plus.

We know providing outstanding care means taking a holistic approach to clients’ needs, which is why we’ve introduced Domiciliary Plus to expand our services into new areas that many care providers currently don’t consider.

Domiciliary Plus is made up of three separate initiatives designed to enhance our clients’ quality of life:

• Live Socially
• iCare
• Rebuild your Skills

We believe that a great quality of life shouldn’t be optional: that’s why we offer Domiciliary Plus services to our clients at no extra cost.

Live Socially

Those with care needs may find their social circle diminishes over time, as it becomes harder for them to meet people. Research has found that older adults who socialise with people outside of their usual social circle report better mood and increased physical activity1, as well as enjoying more mental stimulation.

Live Socially offers opportunities for our clients to increase their social contacts through activities such as education classes, community events, keeping active groups, interactive workshops and more. We also encourage our service users to bring a family member along with them to Live Socially events, to help increase familial interaction and cross-generational contact.

Social relationships are key to good health at all stages of life, but they can be particularly vital in later life. Research has found that a lack of social interaction can lead to worse mental functioning2, as well as lowered mood3 and loneliness. By helping our clients keep up with old friends and meet new ones, KASE Care’s Live Socially aims to ensure that everyone can reap the benefits of fulfilling social relationships.

[1] Variety Is the Spice of Late Life: Social Integration and Daily Activity in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Volume 75, Issue 2, February 2020

[2] Exercise, Mood, Self-Efficacy, and Social Support as Predictors of Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults: Direct and Interaction Effects in Frontiers in Psychology, volume 10, September 2019.

[3] Social isolation, cognitive reserve, and cognition in healthy older people in PLOS ONE, Volume 13, Issue 8, August 2018.

iCare

Technology can bring many advantages for older people, from allowing them to remain connected with distant friends and family, to making activities of daily living easier, and allowing them to pursue their interests.

However, for those who don’t have a background of using technology, devices may seem dauting to set up and use. KASE Care’s iCare initiative aims to lower the barriers to technology use. We do that by working with clients to test out new solutions with them in their homes, with the aim of seeing how and where it can improve their lives.

But our mission is more than just bringing great care to our clients: we want to raise standards of care throughout the industry too. To achieve that, we’re aiming to partner with academic institutions to carry out research around iCare, in order to build up a greater body of knowledge on how technology impacts on the wellbeing of care service users. We hope this knowledge can then be used by the care community more broadly to expand service provision in new innovative and evidence-based ways.

Rebuild your Skills

Our clients have an incredible range of skills and hobbies, but they don’t always have as many opportunities to practise them as they might like. That’s where KASE Care’s Rebuild your Skills comes in.

As part of Rebuild your Skills, we help our clients rediscover the pastimes they had a passion but were unable to continue with, due to physical, mental or other restrictions, and experience them once again.

Not only does the experience improve quality of life for clients through mental stimulation and enjoyment of familiar activities, it can also help connect clients with other periods in their lives when they were using those skills or were deeply involved in favourite hobbies.

The idea is based on reminiscence therapy, which encourages people to revisit their pasts, using tools such as life story work, or reminiscence through contemporary music or photos. Initially created for people with dementia and now used more widely, reminiscence therapy has been shown to improve wellbeing, cognitive functioning and mood1. These are all benefits we hope to bring to clients through our Rebuild your Skills Programme.

[1] The impact of individual reminiscence therapy for people with dementia: systematic review in Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, Volume 12, Issue 5, January 2014.