AIBU to think care homes need more age-appropriate entertainment?

Haha, props to your grandmother - we should all aspire to that level of confidence when applying for jobs!

I visit one they have chair Zumba Poetry, Colouring ,Bingo, and the local school children come in. They also make things
I've seen the weekly schedule often.

Rationing (by coupon) did not end until 1954 - 9 years after the end of WW2. Not only were sweets and sugar rationed, but even meat, which was one of the last items still rationed at the end of rationing.

Rationing by price and non-availability continued well into the 1960s - people simply didn't have the money to buy much more than the staples, and even then these were too expensive for many people. Chicken was a luxury until the mid-60s. In low-income families, any left-over Sunday meat was stretched out to make the filling for a pie or a stew on Monday and the bones or chicken carcass were the basis of soup later in the week. Likewise imported fruit and vegetables were still in short supply and hugely expensive right up until the early 1970s. The standing joke was that if there was fresh fruit in the house, it was because someone was ill - and the doctor would be impressed when he made his house call.

My grandmother actually did apply to work on ambulances during the blitz (she was turned down for not being able to drive, or having any other relevant experience). She'd now be the oldest woman in the UK, if she weren't dead.

I agree, been saying this for ages. A lot of older people in care homes are into the Rollong Stones, Bruce Springsteen etc rather than Vera Lynn. Not much thought seems to go into appropriate entertainment.

🤣🤣. This would be torture- or, even worse, that Titanic song by Celine Dion!

I want them to play Bowie, The Smiths, Elvis Costello, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Roni Size.

I think it’s a fair comparison, though I know others may disagree!

I think it’s the lack of maths and let’s face it, the focus on the wars that is pretty constant in our society. An 80 year old in 2026 would have been born in 1946 - people really need to update their references.

I see similar on threads on here all the time, some posters talk about people in their 70s and 80s as if they were working on the ambulances during the blitz or something! It’s bizarre.

Id like a quiet nursing home if I need one. If I want to listen to music I'd do it in my room and choose the music.

I have a terrible memory of being in hospital with concussion when Torvill and Dean were winning gold with Bolero. The horror of being on a busy ward with non stop bolero will be with me to my grave. I don't care how wonderful it was I didn't want it blaring at me from 6am when the ward TV went on.

That’s just ridiculous.

I’m imagine chanting “lager lager lager” and “hey girl, hey boy, superstar DJ, here we go “ at social events when I’m in the old folks home

It varies. I can remember telling my mother that people might be shocked at her thinking the war years were great. She was 22 at the end of the war. No one in her family died. Her father was away in the army which made for a more relaxed happy home. She had GI boyfriends and a well paid job in a factory, she was in service at the start of the war. Even the bombing didn't seem to bother her.

She still didn't like Vera Lynn

Late to the thread, but I am in my eighties and at my local exercise to music class for the over 60s (not in a home) the tutor, when she first took over, played music that she thought we would like. She is in her thirties and put on 1930s - 50s crooning songs and a bit of forties big band.

We were horrified by the songs and politely indicated that we were the original rock and roll generation, The Stones, Who, Beatles, Floyd, Hawkwind, Queen and everything since. She is lovely and has (slowly) updated her repertoire. Can't think why she did it - lack of thought, lack of maths, all the assumptions mentioned above?!

That’s exactly what I was going to say but I thought I’d get a backlash for comparing a war with Covid 😂

"Cell like room" they are not cells. Often having ensuite bathrooms.
They are essentially a private place they can go to if they don't feel like socialising.
Many homes have entertainment. Not always to our liking. But the elderly may like them as although they were not in the war. I wasn't born in the 60s being but enjoy some of the music. Following on from that. I wasn't born when Doris day was big. But I do love watching calamity Jane when it comes around. And many more of the films considered outdated now.
As I've previously stated. Tell the home that you would prefer they pick music shows etc based on your mother in laws era. Or yours. Because after all. She is the only one in there.
I mention that because there may well be people there that do like it. They have to cater to different likes and dislikes. Not always as you pointed it out getting it right.

It kind of depends on the residents needs and the set up of the home. If they require constant supervision, for example they keep trying to get up and walk when they can't walk and are at risk of injuring themselves, they are usually brought into communal areas so staff can keep an eye on both them and other people at once. Most homes can't spare someone to sit in an individual room with just one person.
So therefore, yes. They kind of are required to be present for whatever entertainment is going on in the lounge.
If it distresses them, staff will generally sit with them and distract them, or maybe take them back to their room or for a walk, but generally, yeah. They are subjected to whatever is going on, be that the TV, the radio, the booked entertainment or Betty in the next armchair shouting nonsense :(

Individual events are optional. But if you don't want to go to them there may not be alternatives. In a small place with only one residents' lounge you have the choice between joining in or staying isolated in your room. And if the whole house is decorated and that's the theme for a month's activities, you will get pretty fed up..

Are these care home gigs optional or do residents have to go to them?

Very good point

I hope that in the 2060s, care home residents aren't encouraged to wear masks and reminisce about Covid

But paid, visiting, live acts are a tiny part of what goes on in a care home. Many smaller ones don't have them at all, or perhaps 1 a year. It takes no more expense and effort to decorate a room as a 50s diner and stick on an Elvis CD than it does to cover it in poppies and break out the Vera Lynn. Singalongs with staff are probably easier with more modern music.

I met an academic a few weeks back who works in dementia research. She’s trying to break the stereotype of dementia patients as all elderly, completely senile and usually white. She’s a music lecturer so was telling me precisely this- that many care homes just play really old wartime style music or Frank Sinatra and co as if all elderly people are the same. One of the dementia patients she met loved heavy metal! So yeah, you’re absolutely right to question this.

I think some homes have got more up to date - it is mad that they still seem to be stuck in WWII when there's not that many people left alive who were older than their teens when it was finished.

Granarchy

I have a very good friend who is an activities co-ordinator for a large care home. I once brought this topic up to him when GMIL was in the home and they had entertainment that was all WW2 and pre WW2 when most of the residents had actually been born after the war.

He explained in some cases it's lazy activity co-ordinating. They have the contact details of the people who do the entertainment and just re-order in. The paperwork is already largely done so just change dates. Entertainment sorted. In other cases it's budget related. He explained there are a lot of 1940s re-enactors and singers about with quite a bit of availability and as a result are often a bit cheaper to hire (they are a bit more niche - 1940s weekends/ themed events, as opposed to gig in local pub entertainment). They are also in with the care homes, the activity co-ordinator knows them, knows round about their price, they are often in with 3 or 4 care home groups.

Whereas tribute bands for the Beatles/ the kinks/ Rolling stones ect are still getting pub/ festival/ hotel bookings and still have widespread appeal, they have less availability and often more expensive to get in. He's recently trying to add a bit of northern soul into the mix and is finding it difficult as it has widespread appeal still with pubs/ northern soul events been very popular.

It's a bit like the outings. It's often garden centres/ local seaside ect. My friend recently did a designer outlet trip and it went down a storm. There are some very glamorous ladies of a certain age in his care home who were thrilled to be going round the designer outlet rather than browsing the Edinburgh wool mill/ cotton traders/ pavers of the local garden centre.