Active interventions that promote the development of meaningful social roles and active engagement in local communities have demonstrated positive impacts on older people’s quality of life and health, providing them:
- Opportunities to participate in local activities, some of them starring other older people, to listen to some narrative, such as guided autobiography, which stimulates their taste for remembering people, facts, and events which, without their narrations, would fall into oblivion. Emphasising their desire to help maintain the collective memory may be the factor that encouraged their own ability to recall;
- An infrastructure to increase intergenerational contacts, the older and younger generations can interact to give and receive resources reacting to suggestions for doing something they have not done before.
In discussing proposals for activities, one of the most valuable ways to connect with elderly adults to start or keep a conversation is by:
- Asking personal questions such as Whom were your best friends growing up? What was your first job?
- Offering encouraging words like “Tell me about …” “Tell me more about that…“ so they pursue their narrative or point of view.
- Asking “What happened next?”
- Offering mental stimulation that can prevent cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia;
- Offering support for people who have difficulty with public speaking or sometimes difficult writing on their own because they do not have the competencies or because faced with a blank page, many of them give up, explaining that with preparation and persistence, they can overcome their fear.
- The narrative chaining method can be very useful to breaking the ice. A group is instructed to use a list of 12 sets of 10 words each, which they have had to memorise and create a story based on their imagination using all these unrelated and random words. With this method, narrators win the trust that they will receive the attention of the listeners and not be distracted during their delivery; they are all on stage.
To motivate the sharing and the emergence of the storyteller’s story can be used a book, a fantastic tale or a real-life experience, creative methods such as visual triggers or journal writing, personal artefacts, photographs and objects as well as photos or small videos, or recordings they see and listen themselves and improve what they felt can be improved. It is also important that they accept that someone takes notes.
To involve those who face the fear of being ostracised, don’t want to be embarrassed, want to avoid negative remarks and feel like speaking up is inappropriate, professionals and facilitators need to possess competencies such as communication skills and empathy to establish a trusting relationship.
Thus, staff will be more successful when inviting older people to:
- join visiting other local senior centres and meet other activities;
- participate in conversation groups to develop new hobbies or interests;
- recover the intentions that have been successively postponed during a lifetime of other priorities and demands.