Aug 21

Yesterday I went to the memory unit to pick up the residents and walk them over to the workshop.

The unit has a combination key to get out and I forgot the combination code. This has happened to me on a

number of occasions. The residents enjoy these moments. I'm one of them rather than the expert or gatekeeper.

I kind of like it too. I went looking for help and the maintainance person took out a pen and wrote the 

combination on the palm of my hand and said " This is so you won't forget." At least not until I wash my hands,

I thought. Bloody hell! Another password to remember. I must have at least 30 of them by now. And the number of times

I have had to press that button which says "forgot your passord?"

This is the age of passwords. Never has our memory been put to the test so much than in the 21st century. Multi coloured postickers on fridges, calendar reminders on the mobile

pins and passwords for everything, journal entries and even this computer I'm typing on right, now is one big memory unit. Every bookstore I visit at airport terminals seems to be full of books guaranteeing ways of improving your memory.

The four residents waited patiently behind me as I slowly pressed the tiny combination keys to open it. It took me a few goes. I have a condition called 4th nerve palsy which causes vertical double vision.  They seemed to enjoy seeing me on my knees Magoo-like, adjusting my prism glasses and trying to break the code. We finally got out and made our way to the workshop.

Memory is complex: But the more I understand it, the less fearful I become when I can't find my keys or know that face but can't put a name to it.  Breaking down the fear associated with memory loss is one of the reasons we're doing what we do here at Homefield. Both for the residents, staff, ourselves and the community. The fear of memory loss is the 21 century bogey man.

In his book 'How the Mind Forgets and Remember: The Seven Deadly Sins ' Daniel Schacter focuses on the seven different ways we forget things. 

Transcience refers to a loss of memory over a period of time.  Today at 11.30am I raced back to the studio to pick up a voice recorder to interview an 87 year old resident Cyril Moss.

I would be hard pressed to remember what exactly I was doing at 11.30am last Wednesday.  I'm OK with that. It becomes a bit more problematic when you're standing in a witness box giving evidence in a court of law.

And here's the part I love. In our interview Cyril Moss gave me a text book description of how he learnt how to install a windmill. Every bolt and every bit of machinery used to hold that windmill in place was described by Cyril in minute detail.  He told me it was October or November 1944 when he went out to the Peak Downs "to chase windmills."  Homefield suddenly became La Mancha and Cyril was our own Don Quixote. 

   Cyril Moss 

Absent-Mindedness is when you misplace the keys or mobile or your glasses.  It's because you become preoccupied with something else and you don't pay attention to what you need to remember.

This morning at Homefield, Wanda asked me to ring her mobile because she couldn't find it. In the afternoon as she left to go home she suddenly did a u-turn and came back asking me if I'd seen

her sunglasses.  It's any wonder she forgot her sunglasses. Today her focus, her so called pre-occupation was on working with 8 people with dementia in a workshop to develop their skills in drawing the outline lines of their hands on maps- maps of places they had lived in- and then charting the aged lines of their palms and drawing those onto the map- and finally taking a needle and thread and sewing along the lines of that map. Wanda was anything but absent-minded. The workshop was dynamic, imaginative, thoughtful, caring and above all empowering. Wanda's gentle reassuring hand on the shoulder of one participant to boost her confidence was followed by

helping to unpick a stitch on one another's artwork as she spoke to them about their days living in Southhampton during the blitz.  After the workshop Wanda walked with the residents back to the memory unit, made  2 phone calls to order extra cane for our Gladstone residency and then picked up a police-check form.  Wanda's focus wasn't exactly on the sunglasses.

Blocking is what I experienced the other day walking down the corridoor towards the memory unit when a resident in a wheelchair said 'G'day Steve' and I looked at him and I could not for the life of me remember his name. 

It's when you search for information that you are desperately trying to retrieve. Hours later his name suddenly jumped into my head when I was shopping. "Eddy!"  As I wait at the check out I take out my mobile and in the Notes application write in the name "Eddy" bloke in the wheelchair at Homefield....just in case..... and it will, happen again.

Thurs 14 Aug

Today more than any other day has convinced me that what we are doing is making a difference.

At 9.30am Martin was wheeled across from the dementia unit to join the visual art workshop.

He looked despondent and sat in his chair with his eyes cast down at the table. Martin rarely talks.

Whenever I find him in the dementia unit he is sitting in a chair staring at the floor or out into space.

This morning the other residents in our workshop happily got on with their drawings.

Today we decided to try a different strategy with Martin. I had brought in a Beamz interractive infra

red music system. It works by moving your hands throughlaser beams with pre-programmed sounds.

There is a background rhythm section and as you move your hand through the laser beams

you add a particular instrument to the rhythm. Martin sat in his chair and just

stared at this strange looking contraption.  When I moved my hand across the beam of light which indicated

french horns and a new sound came on top of the background rhythm Martin's eyes came alive. I next placed

my hand across the woodwind beam of light and Martin's eyes quickly moved to the right as he saw the

animated sound wave move on the computer desktop. I walked away and within moments he was 

serenading the whole room with a combination of woodwind, violins, french horns and bass. 

We changed the style to a jazz rhythm and Martin was tapping his feet and playing a funky melody using

a combination of vibes, trumpet, bass and piano. 

I now understood what Oliver Sacks said when he described the power of music on his parksonian patients

in Awakenings as "showing me effects on almost every aspect of brain function - and life."  

That's what I love about Sacks. He always considers the humanity of the person ahead of the science.

And Martin was now full of life. 

At the end of the workshop I wheeled Martin back to the recreation room where a group of belly dancers

had been invited in to entertain the residents. After that it was bingo. We have much work to do.

Wanda's Diary entry

 13/8/14.

Having finished our beautiful boats we today moved on to exploring ‘Maps’.  As a group we discussed what they make us think of and some of the residents shared some great stories of journeys they had taken.  Barbara had travelled much of the Queensland coast in a caravan and spoke of train journeys as a child to boarding school. Maureen shared her tales of travelling from South Hampton to Australia by boat and we all laughed at the recollection of taking children on long car journeys.  As a group we then examined our hands, discussed how the lines on our hands are unique and help to tell the story of our lives.   Each line, scar, ring and wrinkle makes us all unique, they criss cross our hands like the roads, rivers and contours of a map.

For our next art project we are tracing around our hands onto photocopies of map,  drawing  our unique lines  and then stitching around them.  The finished pieces will be mounted on ocean coloured cloth.