On Memorial Day, I’ll make my way to Pittsburgh to give the Jay L. Foster Community Lecture on Alzheimer’s hosted by the U of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health. The talk of my title is Forget Memory – Try Imagination. Today I was putting together the powerpoint and included some of the groups I [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
May 29th Lecture on Creativity and Dementia Care
Posted in Uncategorized on May 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
TimeSlips Creative Storytelling featured on NPR’s Morning Edition
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dementia, Joanne Silberner, Morning Edition, NPR, storytelling, TimeSlips on May 14, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
A thoughtful piece on the power of inviting people with dementia into the world of the imagination was featured this morning on NPR’s Morning Edition. Thanks to Joanne Silberner for a piece well done. One correction – the interactive website for TimeSlips can be used without training…but we do encourage people to get training if [...]
Creating and Engaging “Normal”
Posted in Uncategorized on April 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
If you think about it, what would you most need if you began to have memory lapses and the world around you began to feel unfamiliar? Unable to place faces. Unable to recognize landscapes. Objects. Familiar things. Familiar pathways. Familiar sounds. Familiar objects. Reassurance and comforting when the lapses occur. And opportunities for symbolic self [...]
Following Aynsley
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged arts and aging, aynsley moorhouse, baycrest, theatre and aging on April 5, 2012 | 1 Comment »
I had the good fortune to meet a great group of folks up at University of Toronto when I was there in March. One of those was Aynsley Moorhouse, trained as an actor and with a MA in Theatre from UT. She’s currently an artist in residence at Toronto’s own Baycrest, facilitating a theatre group [...]
Exciting New Crop of Films
Posted in Uncategorized on March 29, 2012 |
I had the distinct privilege of spending 4 days with over a dozen documentary filmmakers this past week. 11 projects were selected out of 130 (yes, 130!) to be part of REEL Aging, a retreat hosted by Working Films that aims to help films develop solid outreach and engagement plans. In other words, they figure [...]
Seeing the Possibilities
Posted in Uncategorized on February 16, 2012 | 1 Comment »
A well-written and thoughtful piece in the NYT’s today. I haven’t read his new book (The Living End) yet, but this brief essay suggests he clearly sees much more than loss in the dementia experience. There is definitely a shift in the air…at least in the memoirs about the dementia experience. The policies and official [...]
Glen’s Farewell
Posted in Uncategorized on January 22, 2012 |
“This Wichita lineman is still on the line. And I’m doing fine.” I wrote an essay several years back on autobiographies by people with dementia. The bulk of them at that time were chronologically told – and hid evidence of the condition in seamlessly told narratives. Could you make a statement about the strength of [...]
Registration is Open! Learn to Create Change Through Creative Engagement
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Penelope Project; creativity; aging; long term care; art and aging; TimeSlips; Luther Manor; Sojourn; Center on Age & Community; Anne Basting; Michael Rohd; on January 11, 2012 | 1 Comment »
The Penelope Project aimed to build community in a long term care setting through an extended and rigorous creative engagement project. Even now, almost a year after the final performance of the play that wound its way through Luther Manor last March, I’m still overwhelmed by the emotion of the experience. When I go back [...]
Ventrioloquism
Posted in Uncategorized on December 27, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Re the article Ventriloquism Helps Memory in the AARP Bulletin – I’m thankful that AARP is profiling positive engagements with people with dementia. But they simply must find a new language to do it. People with Alzheimer’s are MORE than “patients.” And the old trope of “second childhood” is just offensive. I do hope AARP [...]
The Spark of Creative Engagement
Posted in Uncategorized on December 5, 2011 |
Here’s a lovely article about one of the 10 cultural institutions in the Spark Alliance here in Milwaukee. These museums and cultural organizations are part of transforming the culture of dementia care by making everyday life accessible to and embracing of families with dementia.
