Using Documents with PwD

Newspaper clippings, letters, postcards, greeting cards, sketches, certificates might help PwD reminding them of who they were, where they've been and what they have done and they can be helpful to run reminiscence based sessions.

Why is it useful?

Documents are tangible objects that can elicit strong reminiscences.
Triggering intact memories and stimulating conversations can improve the relationship between people with dementia and their families and carers
Ultimately, this can improve the quality of care PwD receive

Activities:

1. Where to Find Memory Documents

1. Where to Find Memory Documents

What will we gain?

Documents can be really helpful in the framework of reminiscence activities, however sometimes they might be hard to find, for example if the PwD or his/her family hasn’t kept them, not recognising their potential value. In this sense, archives can offer documents that individuals often no longer possess: House plans, association records, company archives, local newspapers (advertisements, wedding notices, promotions, awards...) and provide them digitally.

ACTIVITY

Download the activity PDF:

Where to find memory documents

What can be memory documents?

Working life: awards, honours, certificates, business cards, tickets or leaflets from company excursions ...
Leisure: tickets or leaflets from events or holidays, cards, souvenirs ...
Hobbies: sport newspaper clippings, record covers, certificates from ski races or swimming competitions, membership cards ...
School: diplomas, report cards, pages from school books or notebooks...
Family and Friends: postcards, birthday cards, birth or wedding certificates, invitations to birthday parties or weddings ...
Articles and advertisements taken from newspapers corresponding with the PwD‘s interests

Where can I find memory documents?

In one’s own family home
At a neighbour‘s house
Old newspapers and magazines
In local archives or the museum
On the internet
Neighbourhood shops
In the school the PwD attended
In the place where the PwD worked
In the association the PwD is/was part of
... and many more

What will we need?

Collections of memory documents from the person or their family (e.g. certificates from ski races, weddings, travel souvenirs, identity cards, master craftsman's diplomas, honours, concert tickets, birthday cards)
Documents retrieved from the offer of local/regional institutions. Most of them will have to be digitised before use.
Meaningful documents retrieved from the internet

Points for reﬂection

To be able to perform this activity, you should first become acquainted with the life story of the PwD
You might need to try with different topics before finding those who are more stimulating for the PwD
Observe the reaction of the PwD to understand which impact the activity has on him/her

Resources

Europeana (all EU-languages) - Europe’s digital cultural heritage

Austrian National Library, Newspapers

Austrian National Library, Postcard Collection

ETH Zürich e-pics - platform for images, photographs and illustrations

Other national or regional archives and libraries

2. How to Select Memory Documents?

2. How to Select Memory Documents?

What will we gain?

Choosing documents that are really meaningful for the PwD can help pursue the goal to use them to stimulate reminiscence and positive communication with others. On the other hand, persons with dementia may become overwhelmed when faced with too many visual stimuli, therefore it is important to be selective and choose a limited number of items to propose each time. It is also useful to choose documents that do not report too much text and that can be understood by looking at them (for example because they have a well-recognisable graphic).

ACTIVITY

Download the activity PDF:

How to select memory documents

Step 1: Think about what kind of memories you would like evoke?

Do I want to evoke memories about childhood, family, work, leisure or significant events in the PwD‘s life?
Consider: what are memory documents, what can be memory documents for the PwD I‘m working with? Is there something the PwD keeps referring to in your conversations? Can you think of memory documents to cover this topic?

Useful tip:

Choose documents that are significant for PWD and related to an autobiographical event/period of PWD’s life because autobiographical memories tend to remain preserved despite the disease.

Step 2: Getting started - where can I find memory documents in my region?

Start with family, friends and colleagues - nearly everyone has a small private collection of memory documents.
Then look around what‘s offered in your region by way of online collections. If you are looking for something specific, ask around in institutions related to the topic, e.g. associations, municipal archive, companies etc. Whenever you ask, make clear that you don‘t want to take away the documents, but merely want to photograph them.

Step 3: Select memory documents

Once you have chosen the topic and found some documents, how can you decide which ones are most suitable for the PwD?

Ask yourself:

Is it interesting and meaningful for the PwD‘s life?
Is it easily recognisable for the PwD? Consider visual contrast, resolution, not too much text, presence of visual cues that help recognition
If not, can I improve the document‘s graphics (e.g. by choosing only a detail, editing it, putting it in context with another document or photo?)

What will we need?

Brainstorming - what are memory documents, what can be memory documents for the PwD I’m working with
Reflection on what I’ve already covered though photos - can memory documents cover topics I couldn’t find photos from? Can memory documents cover some topics even better?

Points for reﬂection

When using the word “document” we can refer to a variety of items, including for example birthday cards, membership cards, headed papers… Do not only think about written documents with a lot of text.
Observe the reaction of the PwD to the document chosen: are they meaningful for the person? Do they clearly show the activity / subject etc.?
Which topics can be covered by memory documents - maybe even better then via photos? E.g. a diploma instead of a picture from the graduation ceremony?

3. How to Capture Documents and Prepare them for Upload to the BooM-Box

EDUCATOR NOTES

GLAM PROFESSIONALS NOTES

CARERS NOTES

CARERS NOTES

Which topics can you cover?

It is not unusual for a PwD to have a favourite story which they return to again and again. Quite often the story will relate to a time when the person felt particularly happy or proud. The message behind this repeated story may be that the person is now missing that sense of identity and purpose. Try to look for documents such as:

Working life: awards, honours, certificates, business cards…
Leisure: tickets from events or holidays, cards, souvenirs..
Hobby: sport newspaper clippings, record covers, tailor papers…
School: diplomas, pages from school books or notebooks…
Family: postcards, birthday cards, birth or wedding certificates…
Membership cards

You can contact your local archive/museum and explore if they can provide you a small selection of documents related with your area of interest

How to communicate with PwD?

When showing the pictures to the PwD, you should try to encourage a conversation but avoid creating frustration because of the memory problems the person experiences.

Think about how you want to start the discussion on a particular topic beforehand. Avoid getting into too much detail, use more general language. You don’t have to mention specific events, you can talk about a topic in general.
Do not ask 'Remember when...?' As this kind of question is often a reminder of memories lost.
It’s better to lead the conversation and allow the person to join in. Instead of posing a question, try leading with ‘At that time, there was…’
Sharing a memory yourself helps give clues for the sorts of things you will talk about, and may help the person to relax and recall their memories more easily, without fear of mixing things up or forgetting.

What to consider when working with a PwD through memory documents?

Not all memories are happy ones and it could be considered a gamble bringing up memories without any idea of what may surface. But it's not necessarily a bad thing if a person becomes emotional in a different way.

Observe the reactions of the PwD to the documents you are showing: are they working well?
Be flexible and ready to change your plans if you realise that the documents you are using are not helpful to stimulate the PwD
Listen with kindness and understanding.
After you listened, try to give positive feedback. You can say something like “You were so brave to take that on. You got through it, even though it was hard”.
You don’t always need to steer the person to happier topics unless the person is becoming overly stressed. Many people navigate themselves out of bad memories in the storytelling process.
Even sad memories can be good memories - you would be leaving out very large areas of life if you bypassed all possibly difficult content
Before you leave, stay with the person a little longer and lead them into a more pleasant topic or memory to lift their mood.