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?

As a 72 year old I find it insulting. I do all my banking online, shop on line, keep up to date with the news. Friends are all much the same but I do know the woman nextdoor won't do online banking. Not sure what she's going to do in the future as more and more bank branches are closing. A neighbouring town has a banking hub so maybe that will help. She's 80 this year.

Retired Nurse Manager of Nursing Home here. I totally agree with you. Why not speak to management?

I did a course in computer programming at university and learned how to create programs in BASIC and FORTRAN - in 1975, i.e. 51 years ago. In those days, you had to programme the big mainframe computer with punch cards or tape before it would actually do anything; there was no option to just turn it on and open excel or whatever. Guess how old I am now.

I learned to play the piano as a child, hated the lessons and eventually dropped them and didn't play for many years. I've no room in my flat for a piano, but when Covid hit I got a Yamaha keyboard (anno 1990, £50 from a charity shop), a brilliant little thing called a Yamaha MPK Mini and a PC and I now spend many happy hours noodling on my keyboards, making up and recording tunes and occasionally trying to recreate 1980s songs from the Human League, Depeche Mode and Italian synth-disco. You can stick Vera Lynn, Gracie Fields and especially Max Bygraves where the sun don't shine.

Totally agree, I think the staff need a memo. Was live in carer working in a retirement village during covid. In the club house they were partying every night and the music was 70s and 60s. They had a vote about amenities and they all voted for free wifi in the common areas. I wanted to live there!!!

🤣. Ds thinks it’s naff.

I think it’s naff! 😂

I quite agree (I am 76).
The idea of going into a home is terrifying to me, hopefully it won't be necessary. Neither my mother nor my mother in law did - and mother in law had Parkinson's Disease. They were both still living in their homes when they died.

I downsized a couple of years back to a two bed flat in an over-60s block and that was a big mistake.

Oh that’s interesting @LBFseBrom. I do sometimes think about downsizing prior to age 70, mainly because this is an expensive house to run. What’s the mistake aspect?

It’ll be the retirement block aspect.

nearly always a bad financial move. Usually very difficult to sell and not without losing a fair bit of money.

That is my dilemma.

I'm happy to have a flat but want an 'ordinary' one, not in an over-60s block.

YANBU. My died last year aged 90, still at home with all his faculties. Music taste spanned from the 20s / 30s (specific genres) through to the 80s/90s. He loved Deep Purple and would listen to a lot of my 00s indie with me (00s teen). He was a little boy in war time. The memories weren't always happy and whilst he knew the Vera Lynn songs and tolerated them, he'd have hated them on permanent repeat if he'd been care. Going deaf may have finally come in handy. No good expecting his national service to be tales of blitzkrieg derring do, either. He served in the 50s not ww2 and his service was distressing and occasionally gave him nightmares.

Similarly my mid 70s mum knows and will sing along to those tunes but would rather listen to the beach boys, the kinks, the hollies and anything from the 50s-90s and some beyond with a big g&t to hand. Her dad - born in the 1910s was the ww2 vet and Vera Lynn-esque music fan.

The auto patronising of pensioners also REALLY angers me. I appreciate some people need patience and assistance but they don't need humiliation. My dad was perfectly capable of articulating his interests and my mum and I would've bent over backwards to ensure he had access to them if he went into care - and that he was left alone to read. He spent the last month of his life in hospital with a broken hip. The way he was spoken down to by some staff was very upsetting. This was a man who refused to buy the "old person" large button douro phone the salesman tried to sell him the year before.

Entertainment in care homes will change greatly in the next few years as people are more online and you'll start to see rejection of the entertainment as they'll all have streaming and headphones. I would certainly rather read and do crosswords in peace and listen to my music and watch my films than do crafty crap I have rejected since childhood and have music and films imposed on me. If my mum needs care, she's taking her alexa, her ipad, her kindle, her phone, her amazon music, netflix and tv channel streaming services and a laptop with her.

My aunt is in a care home and the events coordinator is an ex red coat and she's amazing. Wish their set up was the norm.

Oh god this has really made me fear for the future. Trapped in a care home and forced to listen to Abba.

Sounds like my last holiday...the hotel had a predominantly German clientele and they played ABBA all bloody night most nights... apparently it's very popular amongst Germans

I will barricade myself into my home before I can be forced into a nursing home.

That's really not helpful. The "don't you ever put me into a home" just piles guilt onto your loved ones.

If you get to the stage where you are a danger to yourself or need round the clock nursing care, a home is the best place for you. And at that stage, you would not have the health, strength or wherewithall to be doing any barricading.

I was watching a TikTok recently of 2 older ladies dancing in a care home to some generic music and I thought ‘I hope they play old skool dance & trance music when it’s my time!’

Soon care homes will start filling up with the rave generation. Lager lager lager shouting ... mega mega white thing.

Clash and Jam was my era. But I think I'd quite enjoy 'Roll out the barrell' and Mrs Mills singalongs.

One foot in the rave....

I like it!