Want to increase aging parents and everyone’s enjoyment at Thanksgiving ? Try storytelling using Thanksgiving memories.
As an aging professional, you can bring joy to an older person through reminiscence, storytelling, and oral history even elders with dementia
This Thanksgiving ask everyone to tell their favorite story about a Thanksgiving dinner. Start with midlife members to get the idea and then ask again parents to share their story. It will bring extra thanks to Thanksgiving by learning about an elder’s past and giving them the opportunity to share, which sometimes they do not do in the hubbub of family talking.
The “telling ” also means someone documents. That magically gives the elder and a child social interaction and connectedness. Elders vividly recall their past by telling from vignettes in their life – especially life in their 20’s, which sparks the richest recall called the “20’s bump”, according to researchers.
Elders sharing stories means passing on history, so it becomes intergenerational. The older person is given a chance to give the larger picture of their life and family history to children and grandchildren or extended family, who may not have heard all the details of their grandparents or parents life before. So a dual dose of quality of the older person of both the older person and the aging family is increased through oral history and reminiscence
So many midlife adults now do ancestry and regret that they did not ask questions of older family members when they were alive. Capture that past now on this family holiday. An aging professional or a geriatric care manager can suggest family or friends record the Thanksgiving story as oral history using technology like an i Phone or i Pad.
Join me in my new Webinar
5 Ways to Tame the Turbulence of Holiday Meltdown in Aging Families
During the busiest season for care management referrals-
You Will Learn:
- How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
- How to sell services to desperate adult child callers
- How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
- How to use financial forecasting to prepare for growth during the holidays
- How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
Last week the Wall St Journal covered the most revolutionary version of Reminiscence therapy- Town Square. Reminiscence therapy is a treatment that uses all the senses — sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound — to help people with dementia remember events, people and places from their past lives, just as Town Square does.
early 50’s, a barbershop with Elvis hanging on the wall , a Malt shop called Rosie’s Dinner with jukebox, just like the ones my boyfriend Steve Paul and I played while we ate greasy french fries and mooned over each other in the early 60’s. Rosie’s has now collectible formica tables, with chrome chairs but that is a sturdy replica that seniors are safe in with added chrome arms.
Care Manager Nina Herndon, the national expert of elder quality of life, cites in her chapter on Quality of Life, in Handbook of Geriatric Care Management a quote from the aging visionary 