Big Data in the Arts and Humanities

Tangible Memories: Community in Care

image:The interactive rocking chair

The Tangible Memories research project has been working to co-design a set of new digital tools to address some of the key societal challenges concerning the care and wellbeing of older people and the legacy of the memories and stories that they leave for future generations.

Bringing together an interdisciplinary team including digital artists and makers, learning researchers, computer scientists, historians, older people and their carers and families, we are exploring how tangible technologies might be developed to enhance democratic community building and to engage residents in care homes in multisensory experiences.

What have we made?

Our research and co-design work has produced a range of technological prototypes including an interactive rocking chair and a story creator app.

The Interactive Rocking Chair

With care staff and residents in a care home for people with more advanced dementia we have developed a rocking chair that plays therapeutic sounds from nature, music and poetry, emitted through speakers in the chair’s headrests, and activated by the rocking motion. As the residents gently rock and listen to the dawn chorus, or to crickets singing on a summer’s evening, their journeys of the imagination can rekindle past memories and help to assist story sharing.

Residents’ reactions to our prototype chair were varied and left lasting impressions on all involved. One resident, a former pilot, spent some time exploring the surface of the chair through touch, commenting that it reminded her of the cockpit of an aeroplane. Then, listening carefully to the different sounds emitting from the speakers embedded in the rocking chair’s headrests, she identified a woodpecker and an owl’s call among the chorus of birdsong, and she even cooed back to the owl in reply. As she heard the rhythmic sound of someone walking on snow, she lifted her legs up and down in time, keeping apace with them, and describing a vivid story to us about what was happening in her imagination: ‘The farmer’s on his way’. Another resident, who usually doesn’t speak or sing, sat in the chair and sang ‘Rock a Bye baby’ from beginning to end, causing an emotional response from the care staff present.

The Story Creator App

Books provide a tangible, familiar interface for storytelling and reminiscence. We have co-designed an app with older people and care staff that can enable them to easily produce print on demand books based on their stories. You can create pages that combine a photo, text and an audio recording. These can be viewed within the app or printed out. When printed, the audio recording is represented by a beautiful shell illustration. The scan function within the app recognizes the shell on each printed page and, as if by magic, plays back your audio.

Rather than making a book about his life and memories, one gentleman we worked with created a book about the extra care facility where he lives. With so many terrible stories of cruelty and neglect in care homes he wanted to document and celebrate the place where he lives. In the interactive book he talks about his impressions of how the care of older people has changed over the decades. He wanted to include other voices in the book - showcasing the creativity and life histories of other residents, featuring poetry, short stories and accounts from the rich lives they live now and have lived in the past.

The Tangible Memories website is www.tangible-memories.com. Its Twitter address is @tangiblememory Project team: University of Bristol: Helen Manchester, Kirsten Cater, Tim Cole, Seana Kozar; Stand + Stare Collective; Heidi Hinder; Alive! Activities; Pete Bennett; residents and staff at The Orchards (St Monica’s Trust); Blaise Weston Court (Hanover extra care estate); Stokeleigh Lodge.

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