Dimity Brassil grew up surrounded by stories.
Her mother Anne, now 90, studied English literature before becoming a teacher and a bookseller in Wagga Wagga.
“My mum’s a storyteller. She’s a great raconteur.
“She comes from a family of the great Irish oral storytelling tradition — and you can’t get a word in on her family. They’re a side of great talkers.”
In 2018, Dimity decided to move this storytelling tradition on, and record her mother’s tales for posterity.
Then 85, Anne was initially reluctant to take part in what Dimity was calling a “private podcast”.
“She’s still one of the hardest people I’ve ever interviewed,” Dimity says.
“She was scared at the start, but once she got going, she loved it.”
Dimity started recording her mother Anne’s life story in 2018. (Supplied)
Anne became more comfortable, opening up about the joyful parts of life, as well as the parts that were difficult.
“She did find it psychologically therapeutic,” Dimity says.
“You talk about your life, and you find by talking it through, you can find closure.”
Reminiscence is a recognised therapy. It’s also called life review therapy, and it’s often initiated with older people or people nearing their end of life.
It can be done one on one, with photos and videos to aid the session, or in a group setting.
Dimity hadn’t set out to do reminiscence therapy with her mother. Instead, the therapeutic aspect was a happy accident.
Health benefits of reminiscence therapy
Dimity has since learnt more about the evidence supporting storytelling as a form of therapy.
For older people living in the community, reminiscence can improve quality of life and life satisfaction, especially when done in a group.
It can even ease symptoms of depression.
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For adults dealing with cognitive impairment, as seen in dementia, research has found reminiscence therapy has additional benefits.
Dementia can affect a person’s memory, mood and personality.
A 2022 review of studies found engaging in structured storytelling can improve cognitive function, as well as symptoms of anxiety, agitation and confusion.
“We know that helping [people with dementia] to orientate themselves is really crucial,” Kasia Bail, a professor of gerontological nursing at the University of Canberra, says.
“That’s helping them remember who their family are, or where they live, or the dog they’re missing, so they aren’t forgetting themselves.”
Hospital admissions can trigger distress, confusion and delirium for someone with dementia. (Getty Images: David Sacks)
This is especially important in a hospital setting.
Hospital admissions can exacerbate symptoms of dementia, increasing the risk of falls, injuries and infections.
For people with dementia, Professor Bail says a hospital room can be a “hostile” environment.
One intervention that’s used to encourage reminiscence during hospital stays is a sunflower poster — each petal can be filled with facts about the patient.
“If loved ones aren’t around, then the nurses can still use that to prompt conversation and keep that person oriented,” Professor Bail says.
Using tech to collect stories
Reminiscence therapy is a common activity in aged-care homes.
However, there is no standardised approach to it — it’s up to the facility how they conduct storytelling sessions.
Reviews of the research into reminiscence therapy have recommended we need a standardised approach. (Getty Images: Maskot)
Professor Bail and her team decided to use a mobile app to encourage reminiscence, and see its effects on residents of a Canberra care home.
Essentially, they wanted to see whether a high-tech version of the sunflower poster could be useful for residents and carers.
The app already had topics and suggested questions built in to help jump-start conversations.
“Where we saw it worked well was when the person with dementia — instead of just being prompted to answer the questions — was actually grabbing for the phone and going ‘Oh, let me choose one next.'”
Professor Bail says it’s common for people with dementia to withdraw from social activities. The app gave them a reason to re-engage.
“[For people who have isolated] it might actually be really significant when instead of just one-word answers, they start saying three-word answers.”
Photographs and videos are often used to aid reminiscence therapy.(Getty Images: Israel Sebastian)
Doctors, nurses and carers can benefit from this reminiscence therapy too.
Person-centred care — where the person and their goals are kept at the heart of all decisions — is seen as the foundation of high-quality healthcare.
But to deliver person-centred care, you have to know a little about who that person is.
“If you don’t know what to connect with that person about, it’s very hard to reorient them,” Professor Bail says.
“For me, if I ever get confused later, you can probably reorient me with a cup of tea. But that’s not going to work for everybody.
“One of the fellows, for example, was a brick layer. So having a conversation about the building is a much more effective distraction technique.”
The app enabled this information to be stored and, with permission, shared with family members and other carers.
That way, the benefit of reminiscence went beyond the initial interaction, and could be used to inform care well into the future.
Professor Bail says, especially in a busy hospital environment, clinicians can lose sight of the person being treated.
“So any tools that help us get back to those connections can help us do healthcare better — as well as help people to live better.”
DIY reminiscence
There’s a long way to go, but Professor Bail is hoping to trial story-collecting technology in larger care homes and hospitals.
But she cautions that reminiscence therapy must be done delicately, keeping in mind potential traumas in a person’s past.
“If you know somebody has a history of abuse in their marriage, then you’re not going to reminisce with them about their wedding dress,” she says.
A person’s cultural background should also be considered.
One study in Taiwan found participants were more engaged in group therapy when discussing Chinese New Year and marriages.
Dimity says she has grown to value her relationship with her mum even more. (Supplied)
Getting started can be like “ripping [off] a bandaid”, Dimity says, but it’s worth it to connect with loved ones in a new way, and get a record of their lives.
“The first question is always the hardest, and then it gets easier.”
Noticing the benefit of collecting her mother’s stories, Dimity expanded the project, creating A Lasting Tale to help others do the same.
It connects people with interviewers in case they need some assistance. But it also provides advice for people wanting to collect family stories themselves.
Along the way Dimity has collated some top tips on how to approach these interviews:
start with the easy questions, the ones you already know bring joyrespect their boundariesshare something about yourself to build trustremember your parent is still your parent, and that might impact the answers they give.
When Dimity started interviewing her mother, despite their relationship, she still had to build that trust.
“[I’m] not an investigative journalist. I’m not trying to find an angle on Mum’s life or expose something about her.”
Having interviewed many people now about their lives, Dimity sees how people open up when given the time and space to do so.
She says it’s a privilege to hear their stories and insights, and to see the transformative effect of storytelling up close.
“I’ve learnt that every single person has a story. Even stories that people think themselves are dull — they’re never dull.”
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You can discover more ways to improve the quality of life for older Australians in care on Maggie Beer’s Big Mission on ABC iview.
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