Suite 101 offer advice on how to help dementia patients through memory books
Many people with dementia have a problem with their short term memory, but their long term recollections can be surprisingly good.
Creating a scrapbook of photographs of familiar friends and places can be a great way of stimulating your friend or relative. It can also be hugely rewarding for the carer too.
Don't give up too easily. Sometimes a picture or object will not provoke any reaction. This may be because the person is tired or simply not in the mood. At other times the same image can bring a smile, a nod of recognition or even be the start of a conversation.
Also, if one picture fails to stimulate their memory, try another. None of us can remember everything and, for a variety of reasons, some images will bring a much bigger respone than any other.
Many children enjoy helping to create these scrapbooks. If it is appropriate, get them to make it with the friend or relative who is most likely to benefit.
- A room with a view - Surroundings
- Are you sitting comfortably - Physical comfort
- Cleanliness is next to godliness - hygeine
- Food glorious food - Appetising food
- Getting to know you - Communication
- It's childsplay - All about children
- Let me entertain you - Coping with boredom
- Pleased to meet you - The welcome
- Relatively speaking - Relatives and carers
- The waiting game - Waiting rooms
- There's no place like home - Going home
- Trumpet voluntary - All about volunteers
- A death in the family - Empathy and compassion
- Long Term Care - The long and winding road
- Mobility - Getting there