In 2022 and 2023 UW School of Nursing PhD student Jessica Jin was working on a project analyzing the speech patterns of people with dementia. She collected speech data by guiding participants to reminiscence about the past using iconic photos and by prompting personal stories. Although, it wasn’t the focus of the project, Jin was struck by the positive impact reminiscing had on participants based on what they shared in the study’s exit interview. She was inspired to make reminiscence the focus of her dissertation. Specifically, she wants to investigate if it’s practical to have caregivers regularly reminisce with their loved one at home, to both of their benefits.
“Through this project I was able to closely observe and also learn deeply about their lives and also their struggles,” said Jin. “It was a very thought provoking project… Their stories were very interesting.”
Reminiscence is not a new idea in dementia research. Although there have been some mixed results, said Jin, many studies suggest that reminiscence therapy might help people with dementia with depression, anxiety, quality of life, and slowing cognitive decline, especially for early stage dementia. However, most of those studies have been conducted in clinical and research settings. That’s why Jin wants to find out if it’s possible to move this work into the home, facilitated by family caregivers.
Compared to a clinical setting, reminiscing with family is practical, less expensive, less stressful and more convenient, said Jin. When she talked to the original study participants, they shared that they appreciated not having to come into a clinic for the research project.
“The person who is affected by dementia is more relaxed and more comfortable [in their own home], and then they’re more willing to share their stories,” said Jin.
When she interviewed participants after the speech pattern project, many of them shared how much they enjoyed the activities. She heard from some that they end up feeling sidelined or isolated from family conversations because of their memory loss. They appreciated the chance to be the center of conversation and to share about their own life.
“People living with dementia, they can still remember a lot of things, especially in the mild and moderate stages,” said Jin. “They still retain a lot of memories.”
People with dementia tend to lose their recent memory first, so memories from earlier in life are often more accessible to them.
The experience of reminiscing can be rewarding not only for the person with dementia, but also for family caregivers who can connect with their loved ones over what they still remember.
The biggest potential barrier to at-home reminiscence activities is if family caregivers have the capacity to take them on. Often they are already busy with caregiving tasks, on top of the emotional stress of caregiving. That’s why Jin’s dissertation is focused on investigating if reminiscence activities are realistic for family caregivers, and looking for possible ways to make it easier for them to implement.
In the long term, Jin wonders if reminiscence might be useful for the whole family.
“Grandchildren can converse with their grandparents who have a little memory loss,” said Jin. “They can [learn about] what happened in the past and in their grandparent’s past.” Through that, the grandchild could learn more about their own family history. She hopes to see if someday reminiscence therapy can spread more widely, to benefit many more people with dementia and their care partners.
