Engaging adults with dementia can sometimes be a difficult and frustrating experience; a new storytelling initiative, however, called TimeSlips seeks to “[replace] the pressure to remember with the freedom to imagine.” TimeSlips operates under the premise that storytelling can be therapeutic.
Participants in a storytelling session generally sit in a circle, view a photograph, and then create a story revolving around that picture. This according to NPR “gives people who don’t communicate well a chance to communicate.” It allows people with dementia, NPR reports, “a low-stress way to communicate, one that [does] not rely on memories.”
To find more information on the TimeSlips program, visit: http://www.timeslips.org/
For more resources linking memory and the arts check out the Alzheimer's Poetry Project (http://www.alzpoetry.com/) and Music & Memory (http://www.musicandmemory.org/)
