Sensory detail

On 31^st August 2010 I visited one of my management students at the care home where she works. It’s a lovely old building overlooking the bay at Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria. It reminded me that I need to make notes of details for when Judith goes to visit her mother at Mill View. I have been to lots of care homes in the course of my work and I haven’t found that they vary much in terms of their general ambience, even between old buildings and brand new ones.

The next day I read an article about research and some of the points I took from it were to visit the places you are writing about, talk to experts and try to incorporate all the senses to give a sense of the places.

Some features which I can include for the care home:

·         What you have to do to get in and out  - getting through the security systems. As my story moves on, I will make more of this as Judith is kept waiting in the large porch area unable to get through to reception until a member of staff comes to let her in.

·         The look of the place – clean reception area, and corridors off it like hotels with rooms opening off them on both sides.  The doors are often open so anyone walking down can look in which never seems very private and dignity-maintaining to me. The living rooms tend to be large with big windows and big straight-backed arm chairs and rich dark-coloured carpets. The care home where Judith’s mother is also has gardens which can be seen from the lounge and some of the rooms.

·         The sounds – bells, buzzers and intercom before you get inside, then the hush of the reception area. Sometimes there is the sound of a television in a lounge or resident’s room.

·         The smell – usually a very clean and clinical smell. Staff are always cleaning something.

This is a good reminder for me to go back over other locations to add different types of sensory detail. I haven’t included taste in the example above as I have never eaten in a care home and Judith won’t either.  There will be other opportunities for that in the Cafe-Bar and in the meals that Judith shares with other people.