Page 19 - Storytelling - Storylistening

VI. TimeSlips Storytelling Inspires Imagination Rather than Memory for Elders with Dementia
“Several of our residents became more verbal, more responsive. I’ve noticed an increased alertness and responsiveness to their environment all through the day.”
– Director, Alzheimer’s Care Unit (www.TimeSlips.org)
Most of the activities presented in this book promote reminiscing and memory-based storytelling, and are effective among those living with dementia.
Still, as the National TimeSlips Project (NTSP) asserts, people with dementia who have difficulty remembering or expressing their memories might feel embarrassment or shame at not being able to participate fully in reminiscence activities. The TimeSlips storytelling method takes a different approach, helping those with middle to late stages of Alzheimer’s disease create new stories by exercising their imaginations – “unbounded by reality” – rather than their literal memories.
Communication on an emotional rather than a strictly rational level is encouraged.
“We find that by opening the possibilities for communicating through sound, gesture, nonsensical words,
song, and word fragments, storytellers grow to trust the process and work at expanding their communication skills,” says Anne Basting, creator of the TimeSlips process and director of the Center on Aging and Community, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
TimeSlips works like this:
1. At least once a week, 10-12 persons with symptoms consistent with middle-stage Alzheimer’s disease gather in a circle for one hour.
2. One to three facilitators (staff or volunteers) sit among the storytellers. They welcome each storyteller to the circle and read a story from the previous week to prove to the storytellers they are indeed capable of creative expression.
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