Dementia patients reconnect with memories

Inventor Richard Ernest builds life-sized scenes that help dementia patients retrieve lost memories

There are moments in life one does not forget. They burrow their way into the subconscious, like mountain streams into rocks. For people with dementia, these valleys of memories are snowed under.

Richard Ernest can help to recover these lost moments, and bring them back to life. With the so-called Reminiscence Pods, or RemPods for short, the Englishman gives dementia patients and their relatives a bit of their quality of life back.

Ernest’s invention is a set of mobile wall partitions with various wallpapers and props. He designed his first set in the form of a 60s-style living room, with corresponding furniture, records of Beatles or Edith Piaf crackling on a retro record player, original footage flickering on a wood-paneled TV, as well as newspapers and board games from that time. What looks like a set from a chamber theater is a bridge into a lost world of feelings for the dementia patients.

A DREAM COME TRUE

Now 36 years old, Ernest could never have dreamed that he would build a bridge into a new life. “And yet it all started precisely with a dream,” he says when presenting RemPods at Theo-Burauen-Haus, a senior citizen home in Cologne, Germany. As a consequence of the financial crisis, he was made redundant from his publishing job when someone rang at the door of his terraced house in Stroud, Gloucestershire. His 92-year old neighbor asked whether he could drive him to the care home to see his wife, an Alzheimer’s sufferer. Ernest agreed.

He had never been to a care home before. And what he saw shocked him to the core; a few days later, his emotions flared. Ernest had a dream that he tore a hole in the cold, grey hospital atmosphere, and brought light into darkness with the help of wall partitions that created a familiar sense of well-being.

“This dream felt so real. I only had to turn the idea into reality,” he says. Now he can think back with a smile to how his relationship almost broke apart over it and how his friends and relatives thought he was completely barking mad – because his plan worked.

After building the first memory wall for his neighbor, more and more homes asked for his RemPods. These benefit not only those affected, but also their relatives, the other care home residents and the nursing staff. Founded in, Ernest’s team now supplies pods to over 150 National Health Service trusts, care homes, day centers and care charities across the UK.

When Norman Neschen heard of this on TV in the fall of, it was clear to him that RemPods should also be used in German care homes. The 38-year old has been caring for people with dementia symptoms at the Cologne Theo-Burauen-Haus for years. The fact that there is no evidence to the RemPods’ effectiveness did not stop him from contacting Ernest straight after the TV coverage. Half a year later, the Anglo-German duo presented the “wall of nostalgia,” as Neschen calls the RemPods, in Cologne.

“The most important thing for me is that through the walls of nostalgia we can find a whole new approach to people suffering from dementia,” says Neschen. The RemPods are a popular haunt; the residents chitchat, open up, show feelings. Neschen knows that a smile on a seemingly defunct face sometimes counts for more than empirical evidence.

MONEY FROM THE DRAGONS

Lack of evidence was also the hurdle that nearly nipped this success story in the bud. After Ernest had put all of his savings into the development of the first Rem-Pods, he appeared on the BBC’s “Dragon’s Den.” This reality TV show sees inventive minds make a case for start-up funds for their business ideas.

This dream felt so real. I only had to turn the idea into realityIf Ernest were to print a decisive moment of his own life on a piece of wallpaper, his entrance into the den would certainly be a motif. Dark wooden corridors, sooty bricks, dim light, in front of him a jury of five glum-looking investors. For three of them, the scientific foundations of RemPods were too thin. After some hesitation, the remaining two finally shook hands and gave Ernest start-up capital equivalent to €123,000 (USD $159,000).

In the meantime, the product range of RemPods has expanded to twelve models. The original motif of a 60s living room was followed by arrangements which carry the patients off to a magnificent dance hall or their favorite pub, among others. Depending on the motif, the costs fluctuate between €1,700 and €2,000 ($2200-$2700) per set. In the UK alone, more than 700 RemPods are already an integral part of senior citizen homes and care homes. Ernest’s team has even developed special models for the US market. The mobile partition walls show scenes from a classic diner and a barber shop from the 60s. Neschen will see to the distribution in Germany. The 60s living room pods should be the first memory wall available.

To hit the right nerve of the patients, Ernest hires employees that constantly search for new motifs, talk to the patients’ relatives and uncover memories. Finally, a carpenter molds the results of the research into something tangible for the senses. A small editorial team is responsible for putting together the content for magazines and TV programs. Relatives see to the individual touches by adding personal memory fragments, such as small pieces of furniture or pictures.

RemPods provoke emotions, pull them out of an ocean of riddles, give them stability and zest for life. Carers frequently report how the patients change, for example that they begin to feel like eating and drinking again. Initially, Ernest had to fight back against skeptics that dismissed his invention as lucrative hocus-pocus at the expense of defenseless sick people. Yet the broad-shouldered Brit with the soft features has learned something new. He fights back.

Ernest has evidence at hand showing that his invention reduces the use of medication, among other things. Above all, however, what matters to Ernest are the interpersonal moments that arise when a patient comes into contact with his studio wall for the first time. At the end of the presentation in Cologne, an older dementia patient broke through a ring of journalists and care home employees, smiled softly at her carer Norman Neschen, and asked him to dance in the dance hall RemPod.

Dementia patients reconnect with memories

Inventor Richard Ernest builds life-sized scenes that help dementia patients retrieve lost memories

Dementia patients reconnect with memories

Inventor Richard Ernest builds life-sized scenes that help dementia patients retrieve lost memories

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