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

[myislandhome]

My MIL is 91, born 1935. She has recently gone into a care home. So far, all of the entertainment in the home has been so dated - lots of WW2 focus, songs including roll out the barrel and white cliffs of dover etc. I do realise it's currently the D day celebration but it hasn't been just this weekend.
It's driving me mad, MIL was 10 when the war ended. She was in her 20's in the rock and roll era in the 50's. My own mother, who was in a nursing home until she died, was born in 1940 and had the same experience in her home; despite being in her prime in the late 50's/swinging 60's
AIBU to think that nursing homes need to up their game with their entertainment themes?

I've seen a chap in fb reels dancing to northern soul in his care home. Lovely

Does he wear those big, daft, monstrous flares.....? 😄

I'm fully expecting to hear songs from Duran Duran, Spandeau Ballet and Wham! if I ever end up in a Nursing Home!

My mum is mid 70s and still at home - I've set her up on amazon music and the range she listens to goes from the 50s right up to now.
Shed be horrified by having to listen to all that.
Theres a young singer round here that does a special afternoon rate for care homes and he does all the 60s stuff with a bit more modern thrown in too - goes down a storm with all the old dears.

I was born in the mid 1960s, so was a child in the 1970s and a teen/young adult in the 1980s. Even now, I listen to music from the mid 1970s right up to 2020s... I have no interest whatsoever in anything before the mid 1970s.

Why on earth do they think that anyone wants to listen to music sometimes from over a decade or more before they were even born? (and nothing else.......) Many people like music that is far more recent. It's insulting and patronising.

Sick of being treated as OLD. Once you're past 50, you're OLD (in the eyes of some!)

Like the fucking spam adverts I keep getting in my email and on my phone for baths with doors, walk in showers, retirement villages (kill me now!) and bastard direct cremations and funeral plans!

I'm only 60, I am as healthy as some people half my age, mobile and independent, and I ain't planning on dying for a LONG time yet! As soon as I hit 50, I got loads of ads on Facebook for wrinkle cream, teeth whitener, hair dye, and botox. FUCK. RIGHT OFFFFFF! I didn't have a single grey hair then, my skin was smooth and I looked 5-6 years younger, and my teeth were fine ta - still are!

So infuriating.

Sorry (went off one one there! Must be my age!) 😂

Update.
Today they all played hook a duck in a blow up swimming pool.

My dread is ending up in the geriatric ward if I have to go to hospital. I’m 78, but in my mind I‘m mid thirties!

This thread is so interesting to me. I'm in the US, and I remember a conversation I had about 10 years ago with the activities director of the elder care facility my mother was in (she died at 93 around that time). The director said they were in the process of planning changes to better accommodate the expected large influx of Boomers. Different entertainment was high on the list (including live music with tribute bands, with Beatles high on the list) and also different dining options. They had a large dining room with set times for formal meals, and they were planning to shift to more informal offerings, including a coffee shop. And of course, beefing up their wifi.

You are absolutely right OP - my DM complained about looking for this when looking at care homes a few years ago for my DF. He was in his late 70s and was born shortly before the war ended so has no memory of it - his music era was late 50s onwards.

It’s absolutely baffling - it’s as if many care homes have been stuck in a rut since the 1970s, when WW2 music/culture would have been relevant to residents.

It seems those who run care homes cannot comprehend that someone can be “ancient” (in their eyes) but have grown up in, or be into culture from, the 60s/70s/80s onwards.

There is some sense in advertising walk-in baths, stairlifts and cremations to those in their 50s. Not because they need them themselves, but because they're often organising that sort of thing for their parents who are in their 80s.

MIL is the same. She used to eat curries and liked spicy food even just a few years ago. She could eat food hotter than I can. Now she says she doesn't like it if you give her anything 'different'. My friend's mum has dementia too and she won't eat anything but ham sandwiches.

MIL used to keep tripping the electrics boiling the kettle when she'd forgotten to put water in it. Luckily she never even attempted to cook, she wouldn't have remembered to get it out of the oven.

Totally agree, although my 82 year old grandad isn’t in a care home he really likes listening to 60s because that’s the era when he was out dancing. There’s a music channel dedicated to 60s music and he always has it on and retells us tales of the days when he went out.

My Mum is 85, so was primary school aged when the war ended. She hates all the 'pensioner' songs as she calls them and prefers Motown and M People.

I go to Care Homes professionally. I am ALWAYS pointing this out! Staff are shocked when I point out that an 81 year old was born at the end of the war, and wants music from the 60s and 70s! It’s like they don’t get it at all!!

Tell them 🤷‍♀️

I was thinking about this the other day. How what the carers think was the mainstream taste of the clients was and inflicting that. Imagine them assuming everyone wants to hear Robbie Williams' 'Angels' non-stop and you have no-one to advocate to "make it stop!".

And the first batch of Baby Boomers, all born after the war, turn 80 this year.

They need performers like this. She's ace.

BBC News - Bolton singer, 63, goes viral performing Freed From Desire - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8x70pjj15go?app-referrer=deep-link

100% this. I used to work for a local Age UK in London and our most popular events were always the 70s discos and stuff like that. We used to do a party for Notting Hill carnival and even the people with crutches were doing the limbo by the end. It was so joyful.

They had eaten other foods like curry or pasta happily as they got older, but my patients all had advanced Dementia, they wanted the foods of their childhood, but the cook still tried to change it up and anything that was taken well was added to his rotation. They did love Roast dinners, fish not the chip shop kind, cottage pies, anything like that.
Puddings were always a hit. Any cakes, ice creams, things like that.

Tbf I was born in 1995 and of course I want to listen to things from prior to 1985 (a decade before I was born). The world before you were born doesn’t cease to be of any interest it’s just vintage… I still listen to music from all kinds of eras. Imagine if everyone my age ignored the entirety of rock n roll, reggae, punk, ska etc

I do a lot of this sort of entertainment. Currently, the most popular offerings seem to be show tunes (My Fair Lady, Sound of Music, Fiddler, Les Mis. etc.) and ‘Songs from the 60s’. A Gilbert & Sullivan selection goes down very well too.

Likewise better be Northern on or there'll be trouble😁
Stick the white cliffs of Dover

I totally agree. Same for day centre’s. Those going rocked the 50’s & 60’s. Rock n roll, Beatles, Stones etc.

seriously needs addressing

ps. if I go into a care home, I need heavy metal!!