Care UK uses Christmas to create opportunities for reminiscence with older people

Care UK is encouraging carers and families of people with dementia to use Christmas to create opportunities for reminiscence about past festive times.

Maizie Mears-Owens, Care UK’s head of dementia services, has created the ‘ten boxes of Christmas’ containing treats and objects for older people to touch, smell, see and hear to be used as conversation starters between carers and people with dementia.

Designed to be opened in the days leading up to Christmas, the boxes can be prepared in advance and used as a group activity or in a one to one situation to promote interaction and trigger Christmas memories.

Care UK uses memory boxes throughout the year, filling each with personalised items suited to a resident to create a meaningful tool to use in reminiscence therapy sessions.

Ms Mears –Owens talks through the ten boxes of Christmas and shares how family members and care home staff can easily re-create the idea this Christmas: “Box 1 Smell is one of the most powerful prompts to memory and Christmas is packed with very distinctive smells. You can include a stick of cinnamon, a jar of all spice and many shops sell little bottles containing a liquid that smells of pine for people who have artificial trees.

“Box 2 Many homes, mine included, have a silver sixpence that has been handed down over the years to include in Christmas puddings. You can talk about years when they made the puddings and you can also talk about the year the coin was made.

“Box 3 Now we take fresh and exotic fruit for granted, but a clementine or satsuma when our loved ones were young was a rare treat. Get them to rub it between their hands and feel the texture and to smell the skin in the wonderful moment you peel one.

“Box 4 Talk with your loved-one about when you used to decorate the tree together and ask them about trees and decorations when they were young. “Box 5 Have a look through your photo collection and theirs. Are there any from Christmas past? You can add tinsel to the box. Tinsel has the added advantage of being very tactile, which is great for people with dementia.

"Box 6 The gift of music. Dig out one of your CDs of Christmas song or carols. Carols often take people further back as they remember singing them in school or church.

“Box 7 Nothing sums up Christmas like a Nativity figure. Put just one figure in the box – one you feel will particularly appeal to your loved one. Chat about Christmases when you have had a Nativity set. Do they remember your school Nativity? What is their favourite part of the Christmas story?

“Box 8 A Christmas cracker can bring fun. You can use the cracker to reminisce about Christmas lunches past and also to discuss what will be happening this year and to ask them for their ideas.

“Box 9 Christmas paper and ribbons can be placed in box nine and, depending where your relative is in their pathway, you can either sit together and wrap a present or you can get them to feel the paper and scrunch it up while you talk about opening parcels.

“Box 10 That morning, box up a piece of whatever cake symbolises Christmas to your family. Did they make it with their mum? How did they manage during the years of rationing?”

Care UK run 114 care homes throughout the UK and provide over 156,000 hours of home care every week.

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