Eastbourne Residents practise memory gamesThe wellbeing team at Elstree Care Home, in East Sussex, have certainly been testing the memory of Residents with stimulating memory puzzles that have gone down very well indeed.

The key to solving memory puzzles involves concentration, imagination and discipline. So, Colleagues decided to set a task. Residents were to study a set of objects for five minutes. Then, they named as many of them as they could after they were covered up. 

When faced with the task, Residents believed that they needed to break the objects down into smaller elements, for example colour, shape, use or create links with the objects.

The next visual memory puzzle was easier to solve using the strategies previously practised; Residents were able to name them all and where they were positioned. 

Afterwards there was an exercise to test the ability of remembering pairs of words and to form associations. After, carefully studying the pairs of words. Colleagues rubbed them out and asked the Residents to recall their story and where they were situated. 

Mick, Patricia, June E, David E and Kathleen all joined in. One joked, “I am losing my memory, so can we play more games like these?” All enjoyed making up funny imagery associations of the paired words, “I can imagine being in a taxi with a huge pearl” one said. 

Yolanda De Castro, Home Manager, commented, “Some of the Residents could remember the paired words many hours later and tell me their imagery story. We had a good time sharing our associations and imagery. 'A banana tied to the balloon flying in the sky'. We are going to set a small memory task each day.”