Digital support for those living with dementia

“When you’ve met one person with dementia, you’ve met one person with dementia.”

Quote from Professor Tom Kitwood.

Things that may be affected by a dementia diagnosis:

• Anxiety about safety.
• Memory issues.
• Issue recognising or interpreting objects.
• Issues with hearing or sight and visuospatial awareness.
• Mobility issues.
• Issues with dexterity.
• Isolation.

People living with dementia still want to: 

• express feelings and emotions
• be sociable
• be a part of something
• interact with activities and hobbies
• learn
• teach
• have positive feelings and emotions
• have physical contact

Technology can help to facilitate reminiscence activities. You can use your knowledge of a person’s passions and interests as a basis to explore further using technology. Online resources can provide opportunities to reminisce on important moments in time, images or videos of past events, and there are apps that can facilitate activities.

Focus on positive experiences

When discussing reminiscence, it is very important to be mindful about the conversations we have, and that we don’t upset the person we are working with by evoking memories that are unpleasant.

Technology is a tool that can facilitate these activities, but the technology relies on the facilitator to guide the experience in a positive direction.

Where to start?

Sometimes the best approach is to use a search engine, such as Google or Bing.

Do not feel like you need to always use the technology however. Set it aside, and have a conversation to learn more about someone’s interests. You can then use a search engine to quickly find some relevant and interesting content for inspiration. For example: using an image search to find pictures of a famous British holiday destination in the 1980s and having a conversation about all the wonderful scenes.

A multisensory approach

A multisensory approach to reminiscence is considering accessing more than one sense (Sight, smell, sound,
taste, touch) to enhance reminiscence activities. This doesn’t have to be every time you reminisce, but it is
something you could easily facilitate with digital tools.

For example, when looking at images of Barry Island in the 1980s using a search engine, you could:

• play seabird sounds from a smart speaker device
• find a video of the ocean on a free platform like YouTube
• have a sandwich box filled with sand, or newspaper doused in vinegar, to evoke memories of smell and touch

Effro can provide more information about reminiscence activities.

When using any digital tool, be mindful of the individual you support and their confidence levels with basic digital skills. The language you use and the approach you take, must always have the user experience in mind.

Visual

BBC RemArc

BBC RemArc is an archive of news footage from the past. Users can select by decade or theme. A simple website that will quickly get conversations started.

BFI Player: Britain on map

BFI Player’s “Britain on map” feature allows you to view old archive footage from your local area, perfect to transport someone back in time.

People's Collection Wales

People's Collection Wales captures and celebrates the rich history of Wales by collecting unique stories from everyday people, including the memory archive designed for people living with dementia.

YouTube

YouTube is a popular social media website that allows anybody to create and upload video footage and share it with the world.

Because of this, there are many videos of holiday destinations, historical places and natural wonders, which means there is a great library of content to use to inspire and support conversations.

As well as this, many famous music artists have an official YouTube channel, meaning you can listen to your favourite songs and watch the music video at the same time.

Use YouTube like you would any search engine, by entering key words and finding results that are most relevant to you.

Music

“Music and memory have a powerful connector. Music lights up emotional memories everyone remembers songs from their past, the first kiss, the song at a wedding, seeing their parents dance and we often use music to remember people at funerals.”

BBC Music Memories

BBC Music Memories is designed to introduce you to different generations of music and links to streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple music.

Playlist for Life

Playlist for Life has free resources to create unique playlists for people living with dementia.

Music4Dementia

M4DRadio is a live broadcast of different generations of music available to access on their website.

Apps

My House of Memories

Liverpool University have developed the My House of Memories App which contains content that can be used for memory prompts to facilitate conversations, as well as a tool to create your own memory box within the app. Welsh language resources are also available within the app.

Reminder apps

You can setup reminders on many smart devices. For example, you can ask you smart speaker to remind you to take medication at a certain time of day, or you can use your smartphone’s calendar or reminders app to provide reminders.

There are many useful guides about using your devices to support your daily routines, here are some useful starting points:

• Alexa
• Android devices
• Apple iPhone

Using smart devices provides an additional opportunity to stay connected with current affairs and local networks. 

You could use a search engine, or a social media page, to find local dementia support networks to connect with
and provide a potential avenue for social activity and shared experience. Search for terms such as “Dementia friendly afternoon tea in Wrexham,” and see what results you find. Focus on hobbies and interests to explore the options available for those you support.

In some circumstances, you may be supporting someone who communicates in a different language to you. In such circumstances, you may wish to use a translation app such as Google Translate or Microsoft Translator to breakdown any language barriers where other options to communicate in their chosen language are not available.