Danish national film archives available for reminiscence activities

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundAmong important elements’ in person‐centred care is knowledge about a person’s life, and how this ties into his/her daily activities and care. Finding historical film footage about a particular local setting, or a relevant topic, is time‐consuming and difficult for the care staff. The Danish Film Institute – a government institution under the Ministry of Culture – set out to develop a platform that made part of their historical archive available for staff, to support the national agenda of creating a dementia‐friendly society.MethodBased on knowledge from reminiscence theory, suitable archive footage was selected and grouped into four packages, consisting of several short film clips and supportive documents. The platform was tested on eight nursing home residents with a dementia diagnosed, in two groups of four. Each group performed one session per week for three weeks at the nursing home. Due to COVID‐19 restrictions, only proxy data was collected in terms of interviews with a group leader and two on‐site observers after every session, about their experiences with the material and their observed participant reactions. Data collection without the voices of the participants themselves was performed due to the need for obtaining at least proxy data on the effect of targeted film clip to stimulate frail elderlies with dementia – also in a pandemic lockdown situation. Informed consent from all participants was obtained. Data and ethics approval was done in accordance with Danish law.ResultsAlthough the archive content was not targeted people with declining cognitive function, the staff assessed the effect of this pedagogical dissemination of well‐designed film clip content, as very positive in relation to the participants with dementia. The sessions managed to stimulate engaging discussion and storytelling about the participant's own life in what can be described as deep memory recollections. Some instances of transference of new knowledge about life history to daily care of the participants were reported.ConclusionThe study instances that tailored archived film content can be used in professional person‐centred care to stimulate memories of people with dementia and quality moments in participant`s daily life.