Innovation: House of Memories

United Kingdom

AAI Domains:

• Independent, healthy and secure living (mental well-being)

• Participation in society (social connectedness)

• Capacity and enabling environment (use of ICT)

Dementia is a major public health issue that affects at least 800,000 people across the UK and an estimated 8.4 million aged 60 years and over were suffering from dementia in EU member states. This is approximately 7% of the population in that age range and given the ageing population it is almost certain that the number of people affected by dementia will continue to increase placing greater demands on carers and wider society.

The World Health Organisation estimate that dementia is the greatest cause of years lost due to disability in high-income countries and the second greatest globally with at least 35 million people living with dementia and 7.7 million new cases each year. This means that the numbers of people with dementia will nearly double every 20 years making it essential that social innovations are developed in this area, particularly to provide support to carers who are at elevated risk of harm to their health due to the strain of caring. Providing public support to informal care giving has been identified by WHO Europe as one of five priority interventions for healthy ageing over the period 2012–2020 and there is much work that needs to be done to realise this aim.

The House of Memories is a training programme for carers of people living with dementia that was devised by the National Museum Liverpool in partnership with AFTA Thought in 2012 with initial funding from the Department of Health. House of Memories provides a range of services that includes specialist training to carers, both informal and paid, of people living with dementia. This revolves around increasing awareness of dementia as a long-term condition and the use of reminiscence therapy to jog the memories of people living with dementia.

The training course involves the interactive use of museum exhibits to enable carers to encourage positive quality of life experiences for and with people living with dementia and it had been delivered to more than 1,200 people in the Merseyside and Cheshire area (population approximately 2 million people) by 2012.

This initial wave of training was positively evaluated by participants who reported an increased awareness and understanding of dementia and a belief that by listening and communicating more effectively with people living with dementia then they could make a difference to the quality of people’s lives. The initiative also offered guided memory walks around the museum for people living with dementia and their carers and developed a range of memory suitcases containing items of interest to people from a variety of backgrounds.

A toolkit was developed so that other organisations could develop their own house of memories package that would have relevance to other localities. The House of Memories training programme has subsequently been rolled out to health and social care organisations and cultural institutions across parts of the north of England in 2013 and the midlands in 2014.

These subsequent waves of training have covered several thousand people and have also been positively evaluated for providing greater awareness and skills about how to connect with people living with dementia. In 2015, the toolkit became available as an app for iPhones and iPads, enabling the approach to developing a virtual memory suitcase containing objects covering the period from the 1920s to the 1980s from a range of museums that can be personalised for individual users in their own memory box. It also provides a range of advice and support for carers and organisations to enable them to improve the quality of care they provide to people living with dementia and therefore to improve their quality of life.

In relation to active ageing, the House of Memories is relevant to the capacity and enabling environment domain for contributing to social connectedness of people living with dementia and their carers, improving to their mental well-being by improving their quality of life through meaningful life experiences and with the introduction of the House of Memories app it provides an innovative use of ICT.

Websites

National Museums Liverpool

Alzheimer's Society