Abstract
Memories of the past are critically important as we age. For older adults receiving formal care in a range of settings, reminiscing with care staff may provide frequent opportunities for recalling autobiographical memories with a supportive conversational partner. Importantly, prior research suggests that some reminiscing conversations are more supportive than others. In the developmental literature, a long tradition of sociocultural memory research has shown how children’s autobiographical memory is scaffolded and supported by parents during reminiscing, when parents use a particular kind of conversational technique, known as “elaborative reminiscing”. In the current project, we aimed to examine whether we could enhance conversations between staff and older people receiving aged care by teaching care staff about these beneficial conversational techniques and supporting them to reminisce more often with residents/clients. We also aimed to determine whether staff members’ use of elaborative reminiscing techniques was associated with autobiographical memory details recalled by residents/clients during routine conversations. We conducted a workshop with 16 staff within a residential aged care and community care setting. We followed this with a 4-week training-and-feedback period during which staff recorded their conversations with residents and clients. Staff feedback indicated successful use of the scaffolding techniques overall, and benefits as well as barriers to their use in day-to-day practice. Analysis of the conversations demonstrated that the use of particular elaborative reminiscing techniques by staff was associated with increased recall of episodic and semantic autobiographical memory details by residents/clients. Overall, findings suggest that the principles of elaborative reminiscing may apply across the lifespan, and that the benefits of elaborative reminiscing for autobiographical memory may be particularly important in times of cognitive need. Practically, training aged care staff in specific and practical conversational tools can facilitate reminiscing for people receiving aged care.
Highlights
This article is an open access articleSharing memories of the past in conversation with others is critically important across the lifespan, including as we age [1]
Notwithstanding the important differences between children and older adults, we considered the potential benefits of scaffolding for the memory performance of older adults receiving aged care services, such that the benefits of engaging in rich, supportive, elaborative reminiscing conversations in supporting autobiographical memory may be a lifespan phenomenon rather than a developmental one
Data about uptake came from three sources: (1) the formal post-intervention questionnaire; (2) the informal feedback interviews we conducted with each staff member; and (3) the audio files that staff recorded of themselves interacting with residents/clients in the course of their day-to-day care duties
Summary
Sharing memories of the past in conversation with others is critically important across the lifespan, including as we age [1]. The act of sharing memories with others offers opportunities for bonding, for eliciting emotion and sharing aspects of oneself, distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons. For teaching others about life in the past [3–5]. For older adults receiving aged care, frequent day-to-day opportunities for reminiscing with care staff may provide important cognitive and emotional benefits. Reminiscing together may offer a rich form of social connection between older adults receiving care and their carers, as a way of enabling person-centred and relationship-based aged care [6]. While reminiscing offers numerous benefits across the lifespan, prior research suggests that some reminiscing conversations are more beneficial than others
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