Image of male nurse pushing senior woman in a wheelchair in nursing facility

A graduate student is testing out methods made popular in early childhood learning, hoping to improve dementia care for nursing home residents.

Delainey Smyth, who is a first-year speech-language pathology master’s student, has been testing out the use of meaningful interactions and improved communication at one Grand Rapids, MI, nursing home. After positive results in the first year — including residents exhibiting higher self-esteem, and workers greater job satisfaction — she is now looking to spread the test to two more nursing homes, the Morning Sun reports.

Smyth and her mentor, Natalie Douglas, Ph.D., the director of the division of speech-language pathology at the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow College of Health Professions, presented those early results at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference over the summer.

Now, the grad student plans to conduct another study at two nursing homes near Mount Pleasant, MI, as part of her thesis. Care strategies used the first time around at the Grand Rapids home included rearranging the facility to create more spaces for free movement and activity, adding touches of nature and putting up wayfinding clues — all Montessori for Aging and Dementia methods.

She wants to further evolve the offering by adding more activities that residents did in their past lives, such as cooking, gardening and laundry. Those can help elders reconnect to past life experiences and create more joy in residents’ lives, Smyth said, which in turn, gives them more to talk about with their peers.

“When my great-grandmother entered the nursing home, her experience was one of love and life, rather than sadness and death. I understand that many people don’t feel that way, and I’d like to change that,” Smyth told the Morning Sun. “It’s a challenging goal, but people in nursing homes are delightful if you just try to communicate with them.”