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It's My Story: Living in the Memory Room

Living in the Memory Room

02/07/2013

BBC Radio 4 Extra - It's My Story, Living in the Memory Room

Kim Normanton presents a moving, personal programme about memory and dementia.

Kim Normanton presents a moving, personal programme about memory and dementia, inspired by her mother's illness. She explores a new approach to treatment - recreating the past.

Kim Normanton presents a personal programme about memory and dementia, inspired by her mother's illness. She explores a new approach to treatment: recreating the past. As her mother's memory of recent events was destroyed, Kim discovered that she could only reach her by entering the past. She began sharing memories of her mother's childhood with theatrical props: "She can't reach where I'm living anymore, so it's up to me to go back to happier days in the past and reach her."

This approach to dementia is tried on a much larger scale in Hogewey Dementia Village in Holland. The village recreates the surroundings of the residents' youth, with old-fashioned furnishings, even a supermarket selling old-fashioned sweets. Kim talks to the director about ethical issues: is it right to deceive people with this 'Truman-Show' theatrical illusion?

In Britain she finds care homes increasingly using 'reminiscence objects' to stimulate dementia sufferers to share memories. Kim visits a Cornwall home where Janet Brown, known locally as 'the Memory Lady', organizes group memory sessions using old toys and kitchen utensils plucked from a memory box. "It's a horrible disease and there's no cure, but there are moments which we can make more pleasurable for those living with it, and their carers."

Kim explores the latest memory science with Dr Catherine Loveday of the University of Westminster: "The biggest problem with dementia is a lack of narrative: being suspended in space without the context of memories to support you. But I've seen people with dementia who are very happy - when you're reminiscing, you really are in that world and enjoying that moment."

There are 800,000 dementia sufferers in the UK.

Producers: Kim Normanton and Elizabeth Burke.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

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