A personal trainer is running weekly sessions for dementia patients in care homes to improve their mobility and social engagement.
James Lewis, who is heading up the programme, ensures each session is tailored to the care home resident to, among other things, keep fit and to help their coordination and balance to reduce their risk of falling.
Lewis has been conducting these 45-minute sessions for around eight months which has grown his freelance personal training business.
Lewis said: “It is amazing seeing these people transform in front of me and be much more sturdy on their feet.
“All this comes from the heart and it’s a passion.”
The sessions involve chair-based exercises which translates into a full body workout.
Lewis emphasises the importances of customising the workouts in order to push the residents to be able to complete a good workout without injuring themselves.
Additionally, Lewis educates the residents by quizzing them on the importance of water and nutritious foods during the training sessions.
However, the main challenge of these sessions is not knowing how the residents will respond.
To ensure that the residents have a great session, Lewis makes it fun by playing music or getting the residents to wave at their neighbour if their arm is in the air.
Lewis said: “The best thing about it is that they actually enjoy it.
“They look forward to it and it’s just amazing to see the progress.”
Lewis found this niche due to having a personal connection with dementia after losing his granddad to the disease and watching his grandma go through the stages of dementia.
Lewis said: “It was almost like a light switch had switched on.”
He noticed that his grandma and other residents in Aarandale Manor care home were lacking mobility and social engagement.
This was the first care home that Lewis decided to help and ever since then, the business has expanded.
Now, James Lewis provides training sessions to various care homes across North London, including; Signature, Jewish Care and Avery Healthcare.
Lewis said: “Before I knew it, I had loads and loads of care homes under my belt.”
The business has expanded to helping Chase Farm’s NHS staff before a day of work as Lewis will conduct light stretching classes which begins on June 6.
Lewis aims to enhance the business so that more people can conduct training sessions in care homes.
Lewis said: “I can only be in one place at one time.
“The goal is to just to have a team of people and go to as many care homes as we can on a regular basis and help as many dementia suffers as possible.”
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