Tove Harnett

Persons who move into dementia care homes may experience a range of threats to their identity and sense of self. To counteract this depersonalisation, dementia care homes in many parts of the world have incorporated the use of life stories.
In Nordic eldercare policy, the bare existence of life stories has been used as quality indicators when rating dementia care homes. However, in contrast to other documents, life stories still have an ambiguous direction and purpose. This symposium discusses challenges and promising practices with life story work from several perspectives.
1)An analysis of life story templates and of the assumptions that they communicate about people with dementia.
2)An analysis of staff members’ approaches to personality changes as a result of dementia and the balance between recognizing the person supposed to be “behind” the dementia and recognizing the person in the present, with dementia.
3)An analysis of staff members’ implementation of life story work and reminiscence when providing care for people suffering from dementia and BPSD.
4)A scoping review of the of digital life stories in caring for older adults with dementia to support person-centred care.
Ranging from a scoping review, to life-story templates and everyday life in dementia care settings, the symposia will provide thought provoking discussions on whose story it is and about challenges and promising practices.
Learning outcomes
After this symposium participants will be able to:
- describe challenges in designing life story templates
- reflect on the use of life stories in relation to personality changes as a result of dementia.
- discuss care interventions to people with dementia and with BPSD.
- identify promising practices with digital life stories in dementia care.