- The first and only IMSS toy library offers support to hospitalized patients who are waiting for surgery or treatment.
- He has books, magazines, board games, cards, dominoes, puzzles, word search, mandalas, and all of these, in different ways, help the patient.
- This space has shown its effectiveness in reducing conditions in the elderly such as delirium, functional depression, anxiety and depression.
Comprehensive medical care goes beyond checking the patient in the office and issuing a prescription. There are also other areas that hospitals can incorporate to complement the service. With this in mind, the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) decided to innovate to create its first toy library for older adults.
First of all, it should be remembered that the Institute was officially born on January 19, 1943. Therefore, it has 80 years of experience and during this period it has faced all kinds of adversities. From world wars to pandemics and economic crises.
Where is the first and only toy library for the elderly of the IMSS located?
As part of its service expansion, the Traumatology Hospital “Dr. Victorio de la Fuente Narváez. Located in Magdalena de las Salinas in CDMX, it inaugurated “El Escondite de Don Ringo”. It’s about the first and only toy library for older adults of the IMSS. It offers playful therapy to hospitalized patients who are waiting for surgery or treatment.
Dr. Anabel Marín Tinoco, a specialist in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics in this High Specialty Medical Unit (UMAE), explained that this space aims to reduce geriatric syndromes that appear in people who suffer from a health problem such as a fracture and must remain hospitalized.
“Through therapy we have managed to reduce geriatric syndromes such as delirium, anxiety and functional depression. In the toy library we seek for the patient to maintain basic activities of daily life: eating, dressing, going to the bathroom, having urinary continence, etc., in addition to interacting with other older adults during their stay in the hospital”.
He indicated that a toy librarian from the IMSS Volunteer Service is in charge of “Don Ringo’s Hideout”. It has the support of Geriatric Specialist Nursing staff, two in the morning shift and two in the evening.
“We have books, magazines, board games, cards, dominoes, puzzles, word search, mandalas, and all of these, in different ways, help the patient. From grabbing a lid and covering a bottle, because it involves not only mechanical work, but also cognitive work and fine motor skills so that you do not lose the ability to carry out your daily activities and keep them as close as possible before your hospitalization”.
Benefits offered by this service
He added that work is being done in a special way to treat cognitive alterations, which are alterations in thinking, learning, memory, judgment and decision-making, and which are frequent in older adults who suffer a hip fracture, one of the diseases that are most treated in this Traumatology Hospital.
“We have had a very good response from all over the world, there are people who are obviously more reluctant, but in general they are willing to come to spend a different time than what they are experiencing due to hospitalization, they have fun, are distracted and share time, which helps reduce the degree of stress from being in a Hospital. For patients with hip fractures, who cannot get up, we have “the Ringomobile”, where we take a sample of everything that is here in the toy library bed by bed, and they also support us by telling them stories by cubicle”.
He explained that another strategy of those who work in the toy library is to avoid a condition known as caregiver collapse. This is so that the family member or person assigned to care for the elderly does not suffer from situations such as frustration, irritability, difficulty performing tasks that they previously had, and even anxiety, depression, or fatigue disorders.
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