Recognii Offers New Way To Entertain Residents With Later Stage Dementia

The first film created especially for people living with later-stage dementia is offering care homes an inexpensive and accessible new way to entertain residents ‘Treasure Box’ by Recognii is an hour-long series of uplifting plot-free and visually engaging short clips, all set to some of the nation’s best-known music, songs and theme tunes

Each scene has been designed to capture short attention spans and specially adapted to overcome the common visual and cognitive processing problems associated with the condition

The company’s founder Sarah Harrison says Treasure Box was designed to be an essential resource for dementia care providers providing safe engaging entertainment for communal relaxation areas or a flexible tool for more focused one-to-one or group activities

She explained: Treasure Box can be enjoyed as a complete film but there are also deliberately slow transitions between each of the clips to allow for sensory readjustment and to give staff time to pause the film and reminisce or chat with residents about what they have just seen ”

Recognii contains the sort of content the company s research showed had most universal appeal among sufferers, from happy children, appealing animals and gentle humour to musical interaction, the natural world iconic people and places, puppetry and lots more Treasure Box is available on USB stick for use in Smart TVs and laptops, and also in traditional DVD format They retail at £23 99 for the USB stick or £19 99 for the DVD

Dr Lucy Pollock gerontologist and author of bestselling ‘The Book About Getting Older’ said “This is just lovely Treasure Box is the sort of thing that can be watched over and over by people living with significant dementia In the same way that small children like replaying their favourites these images with music become very soothing with familiarity Even those with significant dementia can find repeated routines comforting

To accommodate the visual processing problems experienced by many people with advanced dementia the team took a deliberate approach to the way the content is filmed

Sarah explained: To make everything as visible as possible we filmed against plain backgrounds with high colour and tonal contrast and predominant use of red and those primary colours research shows are most easily recognised We also took care not to feature unnecessary detail, busy patterns, shadows or reflective light sources ” Each plot-free clip contrasts strongly from the last to draw wandering attention back to the screen, and in keeping with the visual approach, music and vocal arrangements are simple and dialogue is kept to a minimum

CASE STUDY:

Acacia Lodge in Oxfordshire is a purpose-built residence in the centre of picturesque Henley-On-Thames with 55 en-suite rooms and beautifully landscaped gardens

It is part of The Future Care Group a leading residential nursing and dementia care provider with 19 high-quality homes throughout the midlands London and south-east Acacia Lodge lifestyle assistant Alex Owens purchased Recognii to use on their dementia floor after reading about the innovation in The Daily Telegraph

Lifestyle lead Wendy Fricker said “At Acacia Lodge quality of life is at the heart of everything we do and we are continually looking for new and varied ways to ensure each of our residents stays engaged happy and relaxed

“We were very impressed with the Recognii concept The short, simple clips helped a great deal, holding the group’s attention and keeping them watching eagerly for the next scene The content is very well thought out and they loved the mix of singalongs, smiling children, animals and bright colourful images Thirteen out of our 16 residents with dementia engaged and joined in with every sequence which was just amazing to see ” Wendy now uses Recognii as part of a ‘cinema-style’ experience handing out popcorn tea cakes and fizzy drinks for residents to enjoy while they settle down to watch with care staff She also uses it as a discussion and reminiscence tool with smaller groups or for focussed one-to-one activities are

Wendy said Recognii is a welcome addition to the stimulating and diverse programme of activities and events at Acacia Lodge We can t wait for the next volume and will be putting in our order asap!