Memory Technology Library

A short film showcasing products from the world's first Memory Technology Library in Bath, UK.

[music plays]

(man) That little thing. You probably saw it as you came in. (woman) That's the talking tile.

(man) And I never knew really what it was. And I can do it.

You press it and then you go away, and it talks, and it tells you what to do on the door.

(tile) "Lift the door handle all the way up."

(tile) "Turn the key to the left."

(tile) "Put on the chain."

The problem was with locking it, wasn't it? Especially at night time, because you used to always lock up.

And then when we changed the front door, it had a different system.

And I was using all sorts of ways of trying to explain to you

that this system had a double lock, and that you had to lift the handle and turn the key at the same time.

And I think I was just giving you far too much information and you just weren't getting it.

In a real way, it does it for itself.

It doesn't do it for me, because if I were left with it, I couldn't do it.

But it's doing it itself - it works very well.

And as far as we're concerned, the whole thing out there is lovely.

We were so pleased with that, and just the idea that you could learn to do something else from it,

wasn't it? that now we're saying, well, with the situation the other day

when you were going to the shop, and we said, "We could have used that red tile for that."

And so we're beginning to think, now we know how to do that very short sequencing,

not too much information, with that tile,

we're beginning to think we could use it for other things.

[music plays]

So the day/night orientation clock, we've got it in two of the bays,

in a ladies bay with six beds, and in a male bed with -

a male bay rather, sorry, with six beds.

And it displays the time, it displays whether it's morning or afternoon, AM or PM.

It displays the face clock, and it also displays the time in digital time.

So the clocks also have the facility of being able to show the seasons,

as a form of slide show, and that's also very helpful to orientate the patients.

So we have nice spring pictures, lovely autumnal pictures,

and winter pictures, and summer pictures.

So that's really good, because you know, it's a conversation point.

And the patients can relate, it gives them a focus.

They can relate to what's going on on the screen.

So the clocks have been fantastic, really, in that we've been able to use them as a tool,

almost, really, being able to orientate the patients to the time and day and season.

They can then talk with their relatives about the time -

the time, and day, and what's being shown on the clock.

They've been extremely useful for orientating the patients to time.

For the staff, too, they're very useful in that it helps to orientate the staff as to...

'Cause often when you're signing for lots of medication, you can forget what the date is,

the time, and you can just look at the clock.

And it helps - it helps with signing for your medications.

Um, so yes, they really are an excellent tool to have in a general hospital ward.

[music plays]

This project is really about preventing agitation with residents who've got dementia,

and really supporting them, and enhancing their memories. It's a reminiscence tool.

It will enable care staff to sit down with a resident when they're feeling upset,

sad, angry, cross, and help take their mind back to a different place and time -

where they were having lovely memories.

(resident) And then that's my husband, and that's my daughter-in-law,

(young woman) Helen. Is that Philip? Your son? Is your son called Philip?

(resident) Yes.

This is the front cover of the book, and it's got a photograph of the lady whose book it is.

This is her getting married.

The book's really simple to use, which is why it's a great tool.

It's just an on/off button here, on the side, that you press.

And inside the book there's the memory card, so everything that you record

is stored on the memory card.

Each page has a play button, so there's a recorded message

on each page, that you can press.

(book) "Audrey and Wilfred Buttram got married at --- Church

where she was a Sunday school teacher."

And what happens is you press "Play" on the page and this little statement

will bring back a flood of stories and memories.

So it's not just about - simply getting married.

It could be about the things that she did for the church, you know.

Getting married, how she met Wilf.

So, there's so much potential within each photograph.

(book) "Having mai-tai cocktails in Orlando, in America.

At the revolving restaurant, on International Drive."

(young woman) Wow, revolving. (resident) Yeah, we had some lovely times.

(young woman) So it was actually going round, the restaurant, as you were eating your meal?

(resident, laughing) We're doing all sorts of things.

They used to say, "Come on, Audrey, we can't eat it going round."

"Go on, it will be all right."

I know you love living here with ---, but do you think this book

to have made your time here, or could make your time here more enjoyable?

Well, yes, I think so. You've got so much different things to see.

And once you've gone round and seen them, then you know that you've seen them.

(young woman) Does it bring back memories, then?

(resident) Yeah, I wouldn't mind going again, actually.

(young woman) Yeah, 'cause that idea makes you think...

(resident) One day I should go again.

(young woman) Be nice, wouldn't it. Can you take me?

(resident) Yeah, we'll take you as well.

(young woman) We'll go on a little adventure.

[music plays]

Now, this is one of our designs, it's the Day Clock.

And it's a time orientation item for people who have trouble

with short-term memory and time orientation.

The reason it's needed is, some people - as you know, if you have some forms of dementia,

you can struggle to know whether it's day or night. Even if it's dark or light outside.

That's not enough of a cue for some people. And it can be the reason some people go out at night.

It's not because they've made some mysterious decision to go shopping

in the middle of the night. It's simply they don't realize it't the wrong time, and

they're trying to go shopping in the day.

So the only piece of information they're missing,

is what day of the week it is, and what part of the day it is.

The information that we display on the clock is the 4 different parts of the day,

so: morning, afternoon, evening, and night.

And we do that for all of the days of the week.

The changeover between night and morning happens at 7 AM.

And that's very deliberate in the design.

If we changed over to morning at midnight, which technically it does do,

we'd have people getting out of bed at 2 AM being taught it's morning.

We actually want to enable people to make sensible decisions,

appropriate decisions about how to go about their day, as normal.

Things happen on a Tuesday morning, or on a Friday evening -

that's how people plan their lives.

And what we're doing is trying to encourage people to be able to make

their own decisions about how to use their day -

and make appropriate decisions that makes them be able to do things

in the same way that other people can.

So it's enabling them to do what they would do before,

even though they've lost this particular skill.

And because this can have a huge impact in the confidence of the person

about what time of day it is, it can actually have a big impact on carers as well.

Because carers may find, and certainly some of our customers have found,

that they're no longer receiving lots of phone calls overnight saying,

"Why aren't you here?" "What day is it?"

"Why haven't you come to visit me?" when it's 4 o'clock in the morning.

Now, when you buy one of these, it will come out of the box,

it's already programmed with the timing, and you can plug it straight into the mains,

and it will be working - it will be set to the right time and date for you already.

Most button presses at random, or any one along here, are going to have

no effect at all on the display. And any that do have a small effect,

it will just default back to just being an ordinary day clock.

So it's very, very unlikely that someone, even if they do press all of these buttons,

is going to mess up the display.

Which is a fantastically useful feature, because people like to press buttons, and that's fine.

Um, the other thing that we can do, using these buttons, is switch the blue lighting on or off,

if people either choose to have or not have the blue lighting effect.

Now if someone chooses to have this in their home...

A person with memory problems and time orientation problems can really

benefit from this because it provides clear, unambiguous information.

It's only got the information that's needed.

People learn to trust the information on this, which is really exciting.

We didn't know that before we designed it, and we found that people

actually trust the information and it does make a difference to them

even when darkness and light aren't a strong enough cue to help them

with day and night. They do believe in this.

[music plays]

When I first got the opportunity for Mum to go into some respite care,

I was very worried that, really, that she wouldn't remember me

when I came and picked her up again in a few days' time and, you know,

that she wouldn't be happy, and that she was going to be frightened.

So we were sort of going through her room and trying to get

some ornaments, pictures and things that she could, you know,

that would make that room feel more like home.

Just got looking on the internet, I think, and I sort of stumbled across the cards.

I guess I was vaguely aware of them maybe, you know maybe we had one

as a birthday or a Christmas thing at some point and I thought it'd be quite nice,

more than just a picture, if it had something, you know, that reminded Mum of me,

in all honesty.

So the card came like completely blank, and initially I just got

a couple of pictures and sort of stuck them on, and I started to think

it would be nice if it was bright and colorful to sort of attract attention and then -

a bit tactile as well so that... just to make it more likely that

Mum would get it herself. Everybody knows how a card works, it's not...

even now I think Mum could probably pick it up and open it.

(card) "Hi, Mum, it's your son, Alex. I love you and I'll see you on Friday."

My sister lives quite a long way away, she lives in Hong Kong

and we're obviously in the UK, so I sent a blank one over for her

and she could record a message on it, and a current picture.

Yeah, I think she felt the same, you know that...

It's just a way to make Mum smile. Hopefully it helps her remember you.

I know it's not a cure, but I think it's comforting,

and it just... it's in good... Yeah, I think for...

They're very easy to use, and for a cheap, simple bit of technology...

Anything like that that helps, helps a carer, puts a smile on the sufferer's face,

is just nice, I think. It's good.

[music plays]