Cultural Heritage-Based Reminiscence Sessions in Open-Air Museum Settings to Enhance Well-Being of Persons with Dementia

Summary

Background: The 3-year Active Ageing and Heritage in Adult Learning project (2014-17, EU Erasmus+ program) involved five open-air museums in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, UK, and Hungary. Sessions were conducted in venues matching the era of clearest memories for participating older persons with dementia (PwD), e.g., 1940-ties apartment. University researchers (Sweden, UK, & Denmark) evaluated the project. This presentation describes qualitative results.

The objective was to investigate if/how experiences of participating in reminiscence sessions held in open-air museum venues affected wellbeing in PwD.

Method: PwD (n 129) were interviewed individually or in groups. Third-person perspectives were gathered from carers accompanying PwD (n 75), and session facilitators (n 24) using questionnaires that included space for free-text responses. Interviews and free-text responses were analyzed with content analysis.

Results: Both museum venue and object handling stimulated PwD reminiscence.

Evidence strongly indicates that PwD wellbeing (denoted e.g., by showing pleasure, humour, creative self-expression, interest, sustained attention, and a sense of connection with others) was generally promoted through participation in museum-based reminiscence sessions.

Conclusion: Museum-based reminiscence sessions were successful for enhancing PwD well-being at the time of the session. Further research is needed to explore and compare long-range effects of sessions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 18731