Community Post for Grand Brook Memory Care of Richardson/N. Garland
Leaving dementia behind over ice cream.
“Reminiscing is the success of people with dementia,” said Claire Day, president of constituent services for the Alzheimer’s Association Delaware Valley Chapter.
At Grand Brook Memory Care, we understand that evoking memories of the past can be very therapeutic, and calming to a person with Alzheimer’s disease. During a recent trip to an ice cream parlor, residents from Grand Brook Memory Care of Richardson/N. Garland began talking about going to the corner drug store and sitting at the soda fountain in their hometown eating ice cream. The same residents who said very little in their daily routine began to talk about going after school to eat ice cream with their friends. This began a conversation between many of the residents about walking to the drug store to sit at the soda fountain and share stories as they ate their favorite flavor of ice cream.
At another recent event at Grand Brook Memory Care, a local shop owner brought a snow cone machine to the community and made snow cones for the residents. This also brought back many memories for them.
Some of the residents were able to tell the person what flavor they liked best, and many of the residents also reminisced about going to the snow cone stand on a family outing after eating dinner. They spoke of sitting around eating their favorite flavor snow cone.
In both cases, the residents seemed to enjoy telling stories of their past as the stories came with many smiles and laughter!
Reminiscing is known to enhance well-being, increase social participation and provide opportunities for self-expression all of which we love seeing in our residents here at Grand Brook Memory Care.
Snow cones beating dementia and bring back memories.
