A package of specialist products from Altro has helped deliver a high-performance ‘home from home’ refurb at a leading dementia-care home in Middlesex.
The Woodlands Residential Care Home in Ickenham is a family owned and run business providing dementia, respite and day care in a comfortable and secure environment. When the team wanted to expand and upgrade its facilities, they knew careful planning and design would be crucial, as would working with a range of products designed for the specific challenges dementia care environments can bring.
Vickie Nickolls, Designer at Interior Therapy, worked closely with Woodlands to ensure all their needs were met. “My brief was to create a calming environment that felt home from home, somewhere that felt like you could be sitting in your own living-room, and specifically designed for residents with dementia,” she explains.
The refurbishment project involved extending the existing facilities to create more space, adding a dedicated beauty salon, and family reading room, as well as redecorating all the bedrooms, living areas and ensuites. The home is divided up into distinct areas to make it as relaxed an environment as possible, with areas that are communal where the residents are able to mix and develop friendships.
Vickie selected a package of products from Altro to use in the project, including Altro Wood Comfort acoustic slip resistant flooring in hallways and bedrooms, Altro Wood adhesive-free in the lounge and dining areas and Altro Pisces specialist safety flooring in ensuites, coupled with Altro Tegulis tile effect wall panels for a seamless finish.
Completing such a project in a busy care home environment presents very specific challenges which needed to be considered from the start. Vickie explains: “We needed to make sure there was as little disruption as possible for all of the residents living in the existing care home. This was achieved by planning and executing the project in various stages so that no impact was made on the day-to-day life of the residents and no disruption to their care.”
Altro has been at the forefront of dementia-friendly design, working with the University of Stirling’s renowned Dementia Services Development Centre (DSDC) over many years to develop total solutions for the care home sector.
“The range of products on offer from Altro really helped as it gave me lots of choice when starting the design process. The fact that some products were DSDC accredited was the deciding factor as this supported my designs on what colours worked best and also with what style was best suited for a dementia-friendly environment. Also knowing the LRV for each choice was a key feature for me so that I could ensure that each room flowed and met legislative requirements,” says Vickie.
“And of course, these Altro products appealed for the performance characteristics such as the safety, hygiene and durability, something that we needed to ensure we got correct throughout the whole care home.”
Each of the products selected has qualities and characteristics particularly suited to the care home environment. For example, Altro Wood adhesive-free creates maximum impact with minimum downtime providing a safe, durable and decorative solution for busy spaces. It also allows you to avoid the need for noisy air extraction equipment, as with no adhesive, there are no adhesive odours. Altro Wood Comfort offers biophilic, homely aesthetics combined with 14dB noise reduction plus comfort underfoot, as well as Altro’s one in a million slip-resistance guarantee.
Altro Pisces is an award-winning, domestic-look specialist flooring for a ‘home from home’, warm feel in wet environments; designed for shoe and bare foot use to keep you safe with common contaminants such as shampoo and conditioner. Altro Tegulis is a tile-effect wall panel with innovative etched grout lines and multiple colour and design palette options. It is easy to clean, robust and hygienic.
In the kitchens, Altro Stronghold specialist safety flooring was combined with Altro Whiterock White wall cladding for a tried and tested, easy to maintain, commercial kitchen safe and hygienic solution.
With the project complete, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “The impact has been huge both for the residents and also the staff as we have created such a calming environment that feels home from home. The feeling you get when you walk in is exactly what we set out to achieve,” says Vickie.
“Working with Altro was great. The team were super helpful and knowledgeable when I asked any questions, and the whole process was very easy and also enjoyable.”
Find out more about Altro’s solutions for care home environments here: www.altro.com/uk/sectors/health-and-care/care-homes