NEW equipment at a care home is proving to be a hit with care village residents.

Staff at Belong Atherton have completed challenges such as climbing up Mount Snowdon and cycling from Manchester to Blackpool to raise more than £4,000 to install multi-sensory equipment at the site called Vecta Deluxe.

The technology allows the Mealhouse Lane care village to transform a room into a therapeutic environment for people receiving end of life care.

It is positioned in bedrooms and combines a bubble column, projector, fibre optics, aromatherapy diffuser and audio station to people to carry out activities.

Belong Atherton’s experience co-ordinator, who helped to organise a fundraising campaign to buy the equipment, Gemma Willetts, said: “The results with residents have been fantastic.

"And I would go as far as saying is has been life-changing for some of them.

“It took a while to raise the funds, and many hours and days of sore limbs and physical challenges for our staff.

"The tremendous support from sponsors and also Hindley Green Family Church, which helped make this happen, has made it so worthwhile for our residents whose quality of life has improved as a consequence.

"I can’t thank them enough.”

The stimulation equipment has produced positive results for people at the care village who suffer with dementia, anxiety and depression.

One resident, who has previously unresponsive to most stimuli, has displayed a "radical" improvement.

After using the Vecta Deluxe she held her husband's hand and spoke his name for the first time in eight years.

Other Belong care villages in the North West are looking into setting up their own fundraising campaigns to purchase the equipment.