The Benefits of Reminiscing with Elderly.
How and Why to provide Reminiscing as a therapy to the Elderly and Disabled:
There are different ways to use Reminiscing as a Therapy, the way we usually use it is as Simple reminiscence, where we help the residents to reflect on the past in an informative and enjoyable way.
Some of the ways to start a reminiscing session in a group are by :
- Games
- Discussions
- Quizzes
- Music
- Art
- Animal
- Craft
- Gardening
- Cooking
There is an obvious trend here where we are saying that any activity session provided for the residents can involve Reminiscing in one form or another.
When I or my staff provide Therapeutic Activities in any of the homes we go to, we will always attempt to fit in some sort of Reminiscing.
If I am intending to provide a specific Therapy around Reminiscing, I tend to use props to help me guide the flow.
There are some good books on the market and we have some in our shop.
When I provide Music, Craft,
Games & Quizzes, these activities are Generally based around a time period that the elderly know and are comfortable with.
If i'm providing a quiz and an answer is given, I do not let the chance go by to expand on the topic.
I may start by asking :
Q: Pygmalion written by George Bernard shaw was turned into what Famous Musical?
If the Answer, My Fair Lady is given, I would then go onto ask :
- who was in it? Rex Harrison.
- What were some of the characters names? Lisa Doolittle, Henry Higgins
- Does anyone Remember going to see it?
- Can you remember what year it may have been?
- How old would you have been?
- What was it like?
- Can you remember any of the Tunes?
Personal reminiscing has been injected into the Activity and if you can encourage interaction of the answers between others in the group, that will help stimulate further conversations throughout the day.
On many occasion I have returned to homes where the residents have reminded me of a particular conversation that went round and how they all discussed it over the course of the next day, or sometimes week.