“Check tickets please!” Sitting in their compartment, while the landscape passes before their eyes, Marie-Thérèse, Betty and Blanche hand Azzedine their return ticket Muret-Toulouse. The latter is not an SNCF agent and the three travelers did not cover a single kilometer, even if the landscape passed before their eyes for several minutes while they were seated very comfortably in the compartment of their wagon.
That day, how often since the opening of Three fountains nursing home de Muret this summer, these three residents took the “therapeutic train”. Within the protected unit of this establishment in the south of Toulouse, which accommodates 14 elderly people with cognitive disorders or Alzheimer’s disease, the management had the idea of developing this innovative device which was born a few years in Italy.
In one piece of the shared space, the architects have recreated a room that looks deceptively like a compartment. Equipped with a giant screen that broadcasts panorama videos, it welcomes those who express their desire to leave, or who need to calm down. Sometimes forgetting where they are, the elderly present in this unit regularly want to leave the establishment. Offering them to board this train is a way of responding to them.
Ease tensions, reduce the use of drugs
“A few years ago, I had seen a report showing that travel therapy existed elsewhere. When we moved, we saw the opportunity to create a new environment, ”explains Elsa Esteyrie, the director of the Ehpad which belongs to the non-profit association group Edenis.
Like art therapy, mediation with animals or balneotherapy, this activity is a means of providing non-drug treatment to residents suffering from neuro-cognitive pathologies. “A study exists on the subject and shows that this makes it possible to reduce drug treatments by 40%, which has an impact on falls and wanderings”, advances Michel Bismuth, the coordinating doctor of the retirement home.
Often, Alzheimer’s patients, because of their anxiety, feel the compulsive need to walk at all hours of the day and night. When they are in this state, they forget to drink and eat and fall more often. In the train car, “after half an hour or an hour, they come out completely calm, they say that it does them good to see something else”, testifies Blandine, one of the nursing assistants of the unit. protected, decked out in a station master’s cap to “play the game”.
Go with family or in the middle of the night
The staff identifies those who need it during the day, when the tension rises and offers them to go on a trip, to Toulouse, Monaco or elsewhere. Since July, residents have made more than 100 trips. All scrutinized closely. “We wanted to do real research to answer the question: Does the therapeutic train improve the treatment? In 95% of cases, caregivers indicated that there had been an improvement in their condition. In 73% of cases, residents took part between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., which confirms what we already knew, namely that they feel anxious at the end of the day and that they have to be offered something soothing”, analyzes the doctor who has put in place a specific protocol to assess the benefits of this therapeutic tool, in particular thanks to the NPI-ES scale which makes it possible to assess behavioral disorders.
For a large part, the trip will have been proposed when the commotion or wanderings intensify. Or to share a moment with loved ones who have come to visit. “In some cases, it’s also when they ask to leave, that they look for their parents. This moment in peace, allows us to discuss the past, to bring back memories, ”confirms Blandine. And his colleagues have already used it in the middle of the night to relieve the pressure. And eventually, the other residents could also take the day train.
After having had a refreshment in their compartment, having seen the landscapes of the Pyrenees, Betty, Blanche and Marie-Thérèse arrived at their destination. “Already”, exclaimed these ladies, already ready to embark on a new journey.