Winter's Impact on Health

How winter affects the overall health and well-being of the patients you interact with? Yeah, we found that more of our clients over the winter find that period of darkness to be much more isolating for them, it's you know and also a lot colder so going out and interacting with other people becomes more of a challenge and it is something for us to consider that going out in the afternoon people do want to try and get home before it gets dark and we try and offer places where there's activities inside and opportunities for people to mix with others safely you know avoiding any ice slips etc going out and about. And what helps your patients stay well in the winter months? Well we do find that talking to others is often going to help them whether it's a telephone conversation we do a lot more referrals to befriending services online, staying connected to maybe a friend to keep them sort of socially connected and sometimes going out and doing maybe an art and craft activity so that they're a little bit more occupied. Sometimes, you know, there may be some regular exercise groups that they can attend. and there's obviously always that encouragement to continue with that and for some there may be physical activities they can do at home so again there's encouragement if you can't get out and about to at least try and do those things and remain active within the house. And do you find that emotional or mental health shifts during winter? There's definitely a lower mood for many during the winter whether it's a seasonal affective disorder or you know lack of vitamin D people kind of feeling you know it's quite oppressive it's darker so we do see that but obviously if we've encouraged people to start those connections earlier in the year then the idea is that they'll then be able to continue those even through the winter but there's a definite shift and often people will want to wait till spring or wait till it's warmer to start going out again. So we'll just continue to encourage to try and remain as active as possible in the winter times. But often people will see that you know they know spring is coming, they know it will get warmer, they know it will get lighter again soon. So sometimes we hold on to that and reflect on that. And yeah, just support as much as we can and encourage.