TimeSlips

TimeSlips is a creative, group storytelling project for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. A major component of this program is dedicated to training professionals to replicate the intervention.

Organization:

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s Center on Age & Community (UWM’s CAC).

Interdisciplinary program works to advance innovation in aging by fostering partnerships between scholars and practitioners in education, applied research, and long term care

Location:

Milwaukee, WI

How does it work?

The project has three components: Storytelling sessions: The workshops use an improvisational storytelling technique to encourage people with dementia to create imagination based stories. Sharing of stories: The stories shared with the families, are also disseminated publicly (i.e. plays and books) to help raise awareness of dementia. Training workshops: The program trains others to disseminate the method and use storytelling as meaningful engagement with people with dementia.

Why is it successful?

The stories from the original storytelling sessions became a fully-produced play. Other story telling sessions have produced books that were disseminated to the storytellers’ families.

In addition, program evaluation which involved a 20 nursing home study showed that on the facilities that practice TimeSlips, staff and residents had higher quality and quantity of interactions. In the original 1998 study, it was found that people with dementia who participated in TimeSlips showed less confusion and anxiety particularly on the storytelling days. They also increased their attempts at communication, particularly self-initiated communication.

For more information: www.aging.uwm.edu & www.timeslips.org