Conversations with loved ones suffering from cognitive impairment or dementia can be frustrating or even isolating. Professional genealogist and registered nurse
of Stories of our Generations takes us through an approach she’s used successfully to trigger meaningful conversations.The core of her approach starts with the medical conditions impairing memory formation. For many kinds of dementia, short-term memory or recollections of recent events can be difficult or even impossible. Memories of childhood can remain quite familiar.
Jude’s approach focuses on the remaining long-term memories, using the tools of a genealogist to find cues for conversation in the person’s childhood or known environment of the past. That can mean a shift in worldview for families with loved ones suffering from dementia.
She advocates against focusing on topics like current events or visiting grandchildren, both of which might otherwise seem quite normal. Instead, she advocates for topics related to the loved one’s past, hometown, school, neighbors, familiar smells, music, and other evocative aspects of their past.
Project Recipe
Our project recipe today focuses on this idea and gives you practical guidance on how you might do this yourself. In the recipe below, Jude shares how specially designed memory books can trigger meaningful conversations.
During the program, Jude also guided listeners to consider using this insight to help loved ones who may struggle with cognitive impairments in future years.
In case you missed it, she also covered several of these topics in her post earlier this week:
This very special program inspired an extended conversation that was not recorded in our “after party” that followed today’s program. You can keep the conversation going by sharing insights, remembrances, and questions in the comments below.
You can get a feel for how special today’s program was from the conversation in the concurrent chat session transcript here:
While we cannot share the slides, Jude has prepared this detailed handout, which includes some of the presentation's most salient references and detailed notes.
Again, many thanks to
, and to all of you who joined today’s special program. Learn more about Jude’s approach at her website at storiesofourgenerations.co.uk, on her substack, Stories of our Generations, and in comments here in the .
Project Recipe: Memory Books for Memory Loss with Jude Rhodes