 |
Reminiscence in Dementia CareCurrent Theatre Production: Stories Stories is a new professional theatre production devised by Pam Schweitzer featuring the experience of people with dementia and their carers. Their words are delivered by two older professional actors, Pamela Lyne and Godfrey Jackman, in highly charged 4-minute extracts from their letters, writings and recordings, thus ensuring that their voices are clearly heard in the conference context. The extracts demonstrate anger and sadness, but are also full of humour and compassion. This production was developed for the Alzheimers Society and is available on request as a stimulus to discussion in training events and conferences concerning dementia. Contact Pam Schweitzer for details: pam@pamschweitzer.com Remembering Yesterday, Caring Today A short introduction
The 'RYCT Project', as it has come to be known, is designed to support families coping with dementia. The project involves groups of people with
The manual resulting from the European project has been published in English under the title 'Reminiscing with People with Dementia' (see publications page). It is also available in German, Danish, Italian, French, Spanish, Catalan, Swedish and Romanian translations.
Disseminating the “Remembering Yesterday Caring Today” project
Medical Research Council and National Institute of Health Research funding for RYCT: From 2004-6, 'Remembering Yesterday, Caring Today' was funded by the Medical Research Council to conduct a trial platform, to prepare the ground for a definitive trial of RYCT. The results were sufficiently promising for the National Institute of Health Research to fund our team under their Health Technology Assessment programme to conduct a full three-year trial, involving over 500 people with dementia, expected to report in 2010. As Consultant to both research projects, Pam has been responsible for all the training elements of the project and (jointly with Errollyn Bruce) for the development of the RYCT which is now published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers (see below).
|
|
In 1998, with support from the UK Department of Health and the European Commission, Pam Schweitzer set up an international project for the European Reminiscence Network entitled 'Remembering Yesterday, Caring Today'. It brought together practitioners in 16 European cities to pilot the original concept, which was then thoroughly evaluated and the results shared at conferences in Vienna and Stockholm. 
dementia and their family carers meeting over a number of weeks (from 12 – 18 weeks) to revisit their shared past experience and exploring it in a variety of creative ways including music, drama, art, objects, multi-sensory stimulus and non-verbal communication. The project continues to help families across Europe to develop a sense of their shared history and a greater capacity to cope with stresses in their present lives. The methods pioneered in 1998 have since continued to evolve and develop, providing the following benefits: 
Through countless workshops and conferences worldwide where Pam has spoken of this work, the ideals of the project have been passed on to opinion formers and academics as well as to ‘coal-face’ workers. The conferences include Alzheimers Disease International Conferences in India, South Africa and Barcelona and Alzheimer Europe Conferences in Bucharest, Prague, London, Athens and conferences on Ageing and on the Arts in New York, Vancouver, Nashville, Columbus, Berlin, Munich, Copenhagen, Dublin and many other cities. [