Doll therapy helps care home move away from drug treatment

A care home has drastically reduced patients’ dependency on drugs thanks to alternative treatments such as doll therapy, according to Nursing Times.

Ashcroft care Home in Chesterfield claims it has cut the amount of patients using psychotropic drugs from 92 per cent at the start of 2008 to 28 per cent.

Doll therapy involves female patients being given a doll to look after as if it were a real baby. Research suggests that the doll brings back happy memories of when they were parents.

Psychotropic drugs are a contentious ethical area as they act on a patients’ nervous system and can cause them to experience mood changes.

Caroline Baker from Four Seasons Health Care which runs Ashcroft said: “The results we are seeing from reduced medication and providing complementary therapies have been phenomenal.”

The results have been welcomed by patients’ families who say their relatives are now more attentive and eat and sleep better.

The news of successful alternative treatment comes a week after the Daily Mail reported that a Middleborough care home for dementia sufferers transformed its second floor into an indoor world including a pub, garden and bus stop.