Yoga for Dementia Patients: Day 3
I was surprised to see a double row of chairs set out for yoga. Reema*, a member of staff at the centre, who helps me during my yoga sessions explained that with more people wanting to join the class, they had arranged the chairs in such a way that there would be room for a few wheelchairs, for people needing bigger chairs to sit on and for everyone to be able to move their arms around. I also saw a lovely poster in their main notice board about my yoga class, which highlighted the benefits of yoga.
I was nearly 20 minutes early but on seeing me in the room, people started arriving for the class. There were a few new faces as well. I was told that some people came on fixed days while others came as and when they felt up to it. Joe, Mark and John were there and they all looked really happy to be there. Julie and Lucy showed up but Nita, Rosie and Hina were missing. Chris, a new face, shuffled in and sat right in front of me. He did not acknowledge my greeting or make any eye contact. He looked very depressed. A few others took their places and the last person to arrive was Manny. He walked in with the help of his crutches and occupied a special chair set out for him
We began with some deep breathing exercises followed by neck and shoulder movements. This time I wanted to take them through a slightly more intense sun salutation routine which involved some forward and backward bends. Joe attempted everything but he couldn’t do very much. Mark kept chatting to the person near him and followed the instructions sporadically. Manny was fully involved but he too had limited flexibility. He especially loved the sun salutation routines. He told me that he had looked for the yoga book that he had at home but couldn’t find it. I was pleased to hear that my yoga class had sparked enough interest to make him follow it up at home. I have the book he mentioned and I thought maybe I could lend it to him next time.
Chris initially did practically nothing but slowly got involved. His body was very stiff but still he managed some movement. Lucy too did as much as she could but Julie managed to do a lot. We did a few modified cow and cat poses which are usually done from a hands and knees position on a mat . Consistent with my idea of vocalising, we said ‘Moo’ while doing the cow stretch and ‘ Meow’ during the cat stretch. Lucy loved it. We did many leg exercises as I felt that if their leg muscles could be strengthened, they would be able to walk better. We did some sitting jogs with the speed varying from slow to fast. We pretended that we were practising to run a marathon!
From what the staff told me, and seeing the interest in the faces in my class, I am starting to believe that the yoga sessions are helping the patients, if not physically at least as an interesting weekly activity that they look forward to. Chris was the last person to leave the class and as he left he made eye contact with me and said, “It was good!”.
*All names have been changed.
