The Amavir senior residence in Tías has a help and assistance service for residents in their daily lives during their stay at the center. Its director and the building's workers are known for making the lives of seniors enjoyable inside the building.
The main occupational therapist working at the center is María de la Cruz, a Canary Islander who performs a daily routine with the residents. "What is our responsibility as professionals is to supervise the basic activities of people's lives," the young woman highlighted. The routine activities that a therapist is in charge of are related to motor or cognitive difficulties. "The residents' problems with bringing food to their mouths or showering," María highlighted about her performance. Many of them experience "a deterioration due to dementia or age" that causes impediments to carry out certain personal tasks.
In addition, her role of accompaniment is also based on offering workshops for seniors. Occupations with which residents remember activities from their past and with which they have become familiar throughout their lives: such as cooking or sewing workshops. Workshops to which a type of rehabilitation is added, prepared for some disorders such as more advanced dementia: they have a functional rehabilitation and multisensory stimulation program with a multisensory room for more pronounced conditions.
"What therapists are looking for is independence and autonomy so that the resident can maintain their quality of life"
From the residence they promote psychomotor therapies to focus on the patients' abilities. "It allows them to exercise both at the level of mobility or functional, work on memory, attention and concentration," she highlighted.
One of the initiatives that is being implemented in many health settings is animal therapy. Amavir Tías did not want to miss the opportunity to implement it in its residence. Its owner and an assisted therapy dog come to the center once a month to accompany residents who suffer from a somewhat more advanced deterioration. "It is a joy for them, a feeling of well-being and allows them to focus on concentrated attention," she noted.
Exercises that could not be performed without the appropriate materials to achieve their effectiveness. From Amavir they provide their therapists with everything from basic elements for the functioning of daily life activities, such as sponges and adapted cutlery with extensive handles, so that patients can shower and eat, to shoehorns so that they can put on their shoes autonomously. "The materials are intended for people with motor deterioration or physical difficulties," María specified. With regard to the most advanced materials such as technological ones, the users of the residence are familiar with speakers and tablets, to listen to music or contact their relatives by video call. "Sometimes their environment is not on the island and that communication is very significant," she added.
Josué Perdomo, the current social worker at Amavir, becomes the main companion of the residents and families upon their arrival at the residence. "I am in charge of arranging a prior visit to explain the situation of the person requesting the place," he pointed out. His function is based on giving extensive information about the residence's offer, collecting the documentation and making the admission to the center effective. Once the resident has already entered, he welcomes them and leads them to the evaluations of the health team.
After the first admissions of the residents, Perdomo is also in charge of maintaining contact with the relatives, to whom he provides information about the adaptation process of their relative. The young man is in charge of transmitting the relatives' queries to his colleagues regarding health issues, which is what "worries them the most," he highlighted. In the case of the basic needs of the residents, he acts as an intermediary between the workers and the families, in which he takes care, for example, of collecting the clothes or medications that the users need. In addition, the assistance also extends to the telephone, which complements the face-to-face attention of the environment of the 90 residents who live in the center. "We are in occupation the largest center in Lanzarote, we have a considerable volume of residents, counting the 34 users of the day center," he pointed out.
Completing the paperwork becomes his main task during the working days. Registering the documentation to request procedures with the Dependency Law, technical aids or financial benefits, supporting the initiation of these requests and taking care of the safety and adaptation of unaccompanied residents without family support. Billing the resident is also a task that the young man is responsible for, with the control of public, private or complementary services.
When one of the residents dies, from his position as a social worker, he is responsible for communicating it to the Ministry and organizing the removal of belongings with the relatives. In the event that a resident goes from having a private place to a public one, they are in charge of waiting for all the documentation to convert that place and coordinate the transfer of profiles to annexed residences.
The importance of both professions for society
The two workers of the residence know the importance of their professions for society. A contribution that ensures years of life to the residents who live in the center. "What therapists are looking for is independence and autonomy so that the resident can maintain their quality of life," María highlighted. Her therapies are an encouragement for patients and have "benefits" that are more than proven, she revealed. "Little by little it seems that we are occupying more places," De la Cruz celebrated. Occupational therapy professionals have gone from being only at the geriatric level, to reaching pediatrics, mental health and situations of risk of social exclusion and deprivation of liberty as in penitentiary centers, the young woman recalled.
Occupational therapists have the ability to return patients to their routine activities. María offers some examples of specific aids that are made from the profession: ensuring that a person in a wheelchair can be autonomous and drive a car or adapt the spaces of the residence such as the garden to continue feeding the pigeons, tasks that patients may have as a habit. "At that moment is when we come into action, taking into account the age and the different factors of the patient," María revealed.
The main keys of social workers in this area is that the family "gradually loses the prejudice of negative thinking about centers" such as Amavir, Perdomo specified. It is essential to "eliminate those prejudices through daily support to residents and relatives," he added. The Amavir team makes residents and their families feel comfortable, calm and safe, with a group of professionals who respond adequately and positively, based on the interests of each user.
"It is essential to eliminate those prejudices that exist about residences"
Snorkeling or dog walks with the SARA shelter
With the arrival of summer, the Amavir residence has prepared activities that will take residents out of their usual routine. In the period in which the good weather and long days accompany, users will have the opportunity to practice snorkeling, go to the beach or walk animals outdoors, such as the collaboration with the Sara shelter. Sandra Llorente, the director of Amavir Tías, has told La Voz that her commitment to the outings prepared for the 2024 holidays is "extensive."
"We have had to adapt the activities given the admissions at younger ages that we are having," Llorente stressed. And it is that, the new users who have settled in the center start from 54 years. "This age group raises new activities to which the other residents are signing up," she pointed out.
During this holiday period and the following months of this 2024, the residence will also make many other activities available to residents. A new day of bike rides with the Bikes without age project collaborating with the Security and Emergency Consortium and a volunteering project with people at risk of social exclusion, in which prisoners from the Tahíche prison who are starting their social reintegration will participate.
