Sounds Around is a game designed in partnership with Northumberland Care NHS Foundation Trust for care professionals to use with people with dementia or brain injury.
Introduction
Using a variety of archival sounds from Tyne & Wear Archive & Museums (TWAM) archive and partners across the UK, alongside facts and imagery, the game stimulates conversations, unlocks memories, and encourages play. By playing the sounds and matching them to an image and text on a card, participants can start conversations about different subject matters. The game helps people with dementia to boost their mood, develop their confidence and have conversations about the world around them.
The challenge
A recent report by the Alzheimer’s Society found that the number of people with dementia in the UK is forecast to increase to over one million by 2025 and over two million by 2051. Currently in North Tyneside seven per cent of people aged over 65 and 24 per cent of people aged over 85 have dementia. The number of people with dementia aged over 65 is expected to increase by 53 per cent between 2014 and 2030 in North Tyneside.
Tyne & Wear Archive & Museums Communities team specialise in working with the people and communities of Tyneside - connecting creativity, health and wellbeing. Regularly working alongside health professionals to design and deliver projects and creative activities to support better outcomes for people with ill health. TWAM regularly work with NHS and care staff across Tyneside to develop creative and museum resources in innovative and new ways.
TWAM was the North East and Yorkshire hub partner hub for the British Library’s National Lottery funded Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) project. This national initiative preserved, digitised and provided public access to thousands of the UK's rare and unique sound recordings. As part of this, TWAM’s Communities team role was to develop a community programme exploring the wellbeing benefits of sound, in particular archival, for people with dementia.
The solution
As part of the ‘Unlocking Our Sound Heritage’ community programme TWAM worked in partnership with Northumberland Care NHS Foundation Trust and North East design company, Jump Design. TWAM worked closely with Occupational Therapists at the Trust to develop initial ideas around a sound resource through online training (during lockdown) and the sharing of other resources for the workers to take away and see how they worked with their patients. From their feedback we supported the trust and Jump in coming together and developing ideas for a sounds based resource for people with dementia.
Each partner organisation worked closely together to develop initial ideas and thoughts that led to the creation of a sound game. This included deciding on the game idea; its subject matter; the choice of sounds, design and purpose of the game. This mainly involved making sure sound, imagery and text were both relevant and non-threatening for people with dementia (for example loudness and suddenness) as well as usable and accessible for care workers to use, such as ease of set up in a care setting and the use of the free sound app, Sound Cloud. The initial draft of the game was tested with dementia groups and their carers, and from feedback via the group modified based on what they said.
The games works by playing the sounds and matching them to an image on the card, participants can start conversations about different subject matters. On the back of each card is a fact about the sound, keywords and example questions to ask the participants. There is no right or wrong way to play the game.
The final version of the game was printed with 16 being available from TWAM for carers and occupational therapists to borrow to use and play with individual patients and in groups.
The impact
Sounds Around is a new resource so the full impact of the game is yet to be understood, however we have received interest from both Tyneside based Occupational Therapist and from other areas or the UK, including Essex in borrowing the game. This shows there is an interest in using new and innovative creative and museum sources and exploring how different mediums, such as sound can be used to support care workers practice and people with dementia.
How is the new approach being sustained?
There have been twenty physical copy of the games produced, of which one was given to Northumberland Care NHS Foundation Trust, one to Jump Design and two to the British Library. TWAM has 16 copies that are available for care workers to borrow to work with their groups or with individual patients.
Future development of the game includes developing a digital version on our website so to reach a wider audience.
Lessons learned
Possibility to use sounds in other ways with different ill mental health or requirements.
Exploring new sounds and creating sounds to be archived as a community project.
Contact
Ben Jones - Assistant Outreach Officer, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums
Email: [email protected]