Dimensions:
22 x 28 cmGet your hands on Remin’Action, a useful guide for leading reminiscence groups with seniors.
For over a year now, Marie-France Dozois, owner of Concepts du Sablier, has travelled across the province of Quebec, training activity professionals and nursing aids on this new innovative approach to reminiscing work. It has been a huge success! She is now training college students finishing their leisure course. This Guide is a complete summary of her workshop that will enable you to start your own reminiscence groups.
The Remin’Action Guide is especially useful in helping with the technical side of organizing a group, providing many details such as who should attempt the activity, how many participants there should be, when, where, and how it should take place, etc. Also, it is full of advice on how to improve communication with people with dementia in order to get more out of them in a group setting. What are the 10 best things a leader should do to have a successful group? What should you do if someone starts crying after recalling a sad memory? Why is life review so important? How do I get participants to get involved with each other? What are the best triggers to use? These are all questions to which you’ll find answers in the Remin’Action Guide.
The secret of Remin’Action is in the use of the right triggers when doing reminiscence activities. As an example, if you have people guessing what a smell is from a container or an object and they can’t find it, the activity will be meaningless. The Guide suggests that you always tell people what they are about to smell. Why? We think that in a reminiscing activity, what you really want to achieve is to have people recall a nice memory linked to the smell you have presented them with. Is it important that they guess what it is or should they just put their energy into trying to remember a special event? We know that once people recognize the smell, the memory comes to mind much faster and without stress. Try it!
The second part of the Guide, Popular Themes, includes over 100 activities using the Remin’Action approach. The activities are listed in chronological order so you can start with a participant’s early life, then move on to their youth, adolescence and adult life. Each activity includes a list of triggers you should get to do the activity, music you should play, etc. For each theme, you can use different activities well described in the first part of the Guide: expressing oneself on a chosen subject or on various objects, describing pictures, art or drawings, using costumes, music, etc.
Spiral bound. 110 pages. By Marie-France Dozois.
