Reminiscence

You have to have a core, a seed in you
from which you can grow and unfold,
oherwise everything you think,
is and want, will find no root and no place to rest

The Danish author Tove Ditlevsen wrote this in her novel "Barndommens Gade" (The Street of Childhood). In today's modern society it is necessary to evoke and secure our memories and life history.

The need to be able to return to one's core through memories has probably never been more important than now, because one's memories give both pleasure, security and a feeling of belonging to a place, as nothing else can, in times like ours - busy and without history.

In the English-speaking world the word reminiscence has become a technical term for planned and systematic work with people's memories. In the USA and the United Kingdom - primarily in relation to groups - such activities have been going on for the last 20-30 years. This method is used within cultural, educational, social, as well as health related areas. In the work with elderly people reminiscence has been used more and more in connection with health care of people with dementia.

The development project "Do you Remember?" led by Mr. Ove Dahl for The Association of Pensioners (Pensionisternes Samvirke) was started in 1996 and carried on until 1998 as the first major attempt within the field of nursing and care. The aim was to test foreign experience with reminiscence work in relation to frail elderly people – including people with dementia – at nursing homes and day centres. The experience from the project seems to indicate that demented people - including those suffering considerably - through reminiscence get the highest pleasure from using historical objects rather than information in arranged and abstract form. It seems to be the very experience of handling the original objects which evokes past events and feelings.

The project has attracted great interest among care and health services professionals. In recent years, we have seen an increasing focus on the demented person regarding preservation and strengthening of the personality. The interest led to the establishment of Nørrebro Reminiscence Centre – The Danish Reminiscence Centre in 1997. The centre was placed at The St. Joseph Nursing Home in Copenhagen.

Development Projects

The work at the Danish Centre of Reminiscence has up to now built on a number of developing projects. With the three years’ project translated into “Do you remember? – A test and developing project about the use of reminiscence activities as a useful elderly educational method in relation to the nursing and care area, among other things for people with dementia” (Ove Dahl, 1996-98) the first wider documentation of the reminiscence method in Denmark was developed and described. The experiences were furthermore supplemented by a half-yearly project about the use of reminiscence and life stories in relation to a minor group of women with severer dementia (Marianne Kjer, 1997-98). In the year of 1998 the centre took part of the European cooperation project “Remembering yesterday – caring today” in which people in ten different countries worked with reminiscence in relation to people with dementia living at home and their families (Ove Dahl, Marianne Kjer, and Britta Løvendahl, 1998). The result of the project was, among other things, the publication of the first handbook in Danish about the use of reminiscence within the dementia area. The experiences from these three projects are documented in reports besides having been presented, among other things, in profession journals. In an international relation they have been presented and discussed at professional conferences in London, New York, Berlin and Vienna.

In the three years’ developing project translated into “Time for the past” the use of life stories and reminiscence activities in the daily work at a department of a residential home was further examined (Marianne Kjer, 2000-03). Danish Christine Swane, former head of the Gerontological Institute, evaluated the project.

With the project translated into “Men are not just men” the Centre of Reminiscence made a nationwide questionnaire survey, as well as a number of visits and interviews about special “male activities” for weak elderly men, including men with dementia. The closing report contains, among other things, a catalogue of ideas with about 130 suggestions for suitable activities (Annette Tamborg, 2002-03).

In the year of 2003 the Danish Centre of Reminiscence started a cooperation about the establishment of a regional centre of knowledge for reminiscence with its basis in Ringkjøbing County in Jutland. In continuation of this cooperation the Centre of Reminiscence handles the teaching part of the first scientific study for the valuation of the reminiscence method at institutions for elderly/residential homes. Ten residential homes are a part of this study (five with intervention and five as a control group), and the Centre for Applied Health Services Research and Technology Assessment (CAST) within the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) is in charge of the research.

In the years 2004-05 the Danish Centre of Reminiscence carried out a development project about the use of reminiscence in relation to younger people with dementia, that is people in the age of 50 to 65. In the same period the centre made a project about developing reminiscence boxes for elderly immigrants. The first boxes for the Chinese, Somali and Pakistani people were presented at an exhibition in April 2005.

The Centre of Reminiscence has the past couples of years been working with furnishing of recognisable and homelike environments at a number of nursing home and day centres. The work has taken place in close cooperation with staff, family, and volunteers. The work has also included development and setting up of decorations in the corridors with basis in the stories of the residents.