Stay Connected Activity Centre a new space for those living with dementia, the memory impaired in Port Stephens

By the year 2058, Dementia Australia data predicts that there will be 3554 people living with the condition in the LGA.

With long wait times to secure beds in the Port's residential aged care and nursing homes and limited availability to build more, the question Meagan Harding, a registered nurse for 38 years and director of Care for you at Home, has is 'where are those living with dementia expected to go?'

"Spending the last 20 years working in community nursing I could see this tsunami coming; I could see the numbers of people living with dementia and memory loss increasing but not much being done to prepare for it," she said. "There's been a tendency towards shutting people with dementia away in aged and care facilities, but that's not going to be possible in the future. We've already run out of room."

Mrs Harding has dedicated her working life to supporting those with care needs to lead healthy and happy lives by providing nursing services in the home.

It was the closure of day activity centres across the Port at the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 that lead Mrs Harding to go a step further in providing care services, particularly to those living with dementia.

"What we noticed in 2020 was the increase in carer strain," she said. "Without access to day activity centres for carers to have a break and the isolation, we noticed a transition of clients being cared for in the home to care facilities. It was halfway through 2020 that I thought that this was really concerning and felt the need to do something."

And so the Stay Connected Activity Centre was born.

Opening on January 24, the Taylors Beach-based activity centre will offer people living with dementia and memory loss access to state-of-the-art technology to stimulate the brain, opportunities to go on trips around the area and flexible care hours supervised by qualified practitioners.

Mrs Harding has invested $180,000 into opening the centre in Shearwater Drive, which has been commended by Dementia Australia for being a "dementia-friendly and enabling environment" and a "fantastic sounding service to support independence and well-being for the clients and much needed respite for carers".

Of that investment, more than $8000 has been spent on a Tovertafel 'magic table'. The games console has been specially designed for use in healthcare. The console contains a high-quality projector, infrared sensors, a loudspeaker and a processor in which interactive games are projected onto a table.

Activity centre clients will also have access to virtual reality headsets for reminiscing and individual and group activities. Mrs Harding has also purchased a 12-seater bus so clients can go on trips into the community.

"I wanted to open a centre for everyone, and a centre that isn't about keeping people in a room but getting them back out in the community," she said. "We want our clients to feel engaged, empowered and stimulated."

According to research undertaken by Dementia Australia in 2020, people with dementia are almost twice as likely to experience high rates of loneliness compared to the general public and people with dementia and carers are significantly more lonely than members of the general public.

Stay Connected Activity Centre coordinator Maraya Fameli said it is hoped that the centre would go a long way to helping combat loneliness in clients and carers.

"What we hope is that the people who come here form connections - with each other and their community," she said. "When we're signing people up, we're finding out the places they like to go and things they like to do so they can still do them."

Mrs Harding added that exposing clients to activities, experiences and memories would help "arrest the progression" of dementia, which has no cure.

The centre is open Monday to Friday 9am to 3pm.

Clients can pay privately or through care packages, including the NDIS. The centre is taking half and full day bookings, or by the hour. Currently, the centre is taking clients who are ambulant, verbal, continent and can feed themselves.

Mrs Harding said she hopes to expand the centre in the future for higher need clients.

To contact the centre phone Ms Fameli on (02) 4982 1995 or 0429 814 401 or email admin@stayconnectedac.com.au.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: