Pam
“I’ve always liked listening to stories”
“What is the point asking dementia people for memories? Because you can retrieve lost memories, and memories of long ago are woven into our senses, and can be awoken with senses.”
- Name and something you like doing. No heiratchy, democratic, drawing good for memory jog
- Talk and do not listen, in pairs.
I feel invisible. I lost confidence in what I was saying, my own varsity.
I tried to be more animated to get attention. - Listen and talk – the positive way
Describing where you grew up - Walk each other into your home and around it
Role of questions, do they help or hinder? - Draw the memory
The story became an image, new details emerged - Enact the memory – groups of 4, choosing one story, enact it.
Our name and what we like doing
Listening to memory
Pam facilitating.
Enacting a memory 1
Enacting a memory 2
Enacting a memory 3
Stages
The Wedding
Staring
Bride and Groom – Rachel and Kevin
Bridesmaid – Amy
Best Man – Nicky
Husband of the Bride – Nicky
Horse/organplayer/chef – Lesley
Celebrant – Kally
Bride and Groom and celebrant
The wedding party
Working in groups of 3
- Person with dementia – Waiting 10 seconds before responding
- Carer letting of steam to friend in front of dementia person
- How it is done, with kindness and listening,
Findings: patience, and time and space to respond. Props are good. Careful not to infantalise. Attend to our natural fear of silence.
Importance of physical touch. Pam’s story of doing the 3 legged race.
This is not a social working group. It is a celebratory creative project, about identity.
Rachel’s reflections
A surprising lasting experience for me was Leslie draing my home back garden. I’ve kept her drawing. I hadn’t visited this physical space in my past time for as far back as I can remember . As I relayed the story – for it did turn into a story – more and more jigsaw pieces kept appearing to fall into place. At first it was the wall – Norfolk Flint with red capping stones at the top, and the height that I could ease my body up and climb over. Then it was the wilderness and garden I climbed into – Miss Pallets garden. The Miss Pallets, two spinster sisters, must have through my mother allowed me into their garden, although my mother was not keen for the frequency of my escape into it. (They were many spinster aunts that seemed to live up Quebec road). It had trees, and along with formal areas, a rockery, rhododendrons, azaleas, it had a wild grass areas, with frogs and a stream. What a contrast to my mothers back garden, which was small, flat and rigorously maintained garden: lawn, no moss allowed, with conventional flower beds along each square side. Above all it was a worry, a constant need, a need to weed, to work to keep it up. I saw my mothers anxious face in my minds eye.
And here I am, aged 67, looking back from my wild garden, across to the woodland. That dream of then has become now. Although I do not share my mothers anxiety for the control of the garden, there are times when it arises in mother moments.
Thank you Leslie for waking up this memory. I can feel the roughness of the red capping stones, as my bare little legs lift them selves over it, and the feeling anticipation of jumping down into the slightly forbidden garden.
Remembering yesterday caring today 