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?

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

They are optional but otherwise it's sitting alone in a cell-like room.
The whole idea of residential care is company really, well at least it is for MIL. Company and not having to do housework, meals etc and having people on duty in case.

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..

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 :(

"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.

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

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?!

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

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

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.

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.

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

Cell is the term MIL uses. Coming from a large detached family home to a room must feel a bit like a cell to some. I agree, not all.

🤣🤣. 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It was awful. My head ached, I was vomiting all the time. I think bolero triggers PTSD in me.

This is so funny. While I was reading this thread DH came in and asked if I remembered something we used to do in COVID and shall we go and do it now?

We live near a beach, when restaurants were closed but takeaways reopened we would take plates, cutlery, glasses etc and buy fish and chips and sit in the car looking at the beach and sea while dining out. So we had a nostalgic moment and did it again tonight. Maybe we will suggest it to care home if we ever need one. Our equivalent of We'll meet again but tastier.