Recording Biographies for People with Alzheimer's

Recording the biographies of people living with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia is an incredibly important process. Some of these memories will be lost forever, and someday your recordings will be all that is left. Here are some helpful tips to make the biography of your loved one as special as possible.

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True to Her Word

Before I was born and while I was young, Grandma Maggie and Grandpa John owned on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Every morning around 4:00 AM, Grandpa John and a hired man would get up and milk the cows by hand. The milk would be put into 10-gallon milk jugs which were then loaded onto the back of a horse-drawn wagon.

While they had been out milking, Grandma Maggie would have prepared a large farm breakfast. Then their five children, including my mom, Agnes, would come down to have breakfast together. Before long as breakfast was finished, it was time for the kids to throw on their coats and grab their things for school. They would hop on the back of the milk wagon to get dropped off at school, as Grandpa went on to drop the milk at the local dairy.

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What is Your Favorite Fourth of July Memory?

“Now my family has a cookout, and sometimes we go to a parade. Growing up though, about the time when my brother was two years old, my mother told him that all the fireworks were people celebrating his birthday because his birthday was on July 3rd. The funny outcome was he believed it until he was in first grade!”   -Sandy L.

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Emotional Wellness- Part 2 of 2

(This is a continuation from LifeBio’s blog on Emotional Wellness from Tuesday, June 30th.)

 

Storytelling and Emotional Wellness

Being a storyteller allows us to have control of the story we share. When we are allowed to construct a story, we get to determine the important parts. We can choose what to include, and we can filter out things that we deem smaller or less significant. We can find the deeper meaning in it all. We get to determine the significant characters, the important events, the turning points that we tell, and how things shape us. While living through events, we can interpret them through storytelling. We can decide if and what we want to share from our story with others on our journey. Jonathan Adler, PhD and professor of psychology, says, “You may not have control over all your circumstances, but you can choose how to tell the story.”

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