De Klessebessers for people with dementia
Together with Mariet Schreurs, I designed ‘de Klessebessers’, an activity for people with dementia to actively recall memories together.
As part of my PhD project I did a small case study about dementia together with Mariet Schreurs. We developed a working prototype of our concept design ‘de Klessebessers’, which aims to help people to actively recall recall memories together. We tested this prototype with people from ‘t Anker (Smeetsland, de Stromen) in Rotterdam.
November 2007, ‘de Klessebessers’ won the first price in the design competition Vergeethenniet organised by the province of Noord-Brabant. We won a subsidy to develop de Klessebessers to market. The first set was shown at the Dutch Design Week at the exhibition Dementia & Design and given away to De Landrijt in Einhoven. Nienke Nijhof (Universiteit Twente) and Joost van Hoof (Hogeschool Utrecht) will conduct a observational research about the quality of interaction among people with dementia with the help of de Klessebessers.
Exploring dementia
We explored where people with dementia are good at and what they like at ‘t Anker. There we learned people with dementia like to feel connected to others. However their dementia makes it difficult for them to understand each other. With our design we wanted to give them a common topic to talk about.
The concept: De Klessebessers
This project resulted in the activity de Klessebessers. It helps people with dementia to actively recall memories together. Four Klessebessers are arranged in a group: a telephone, a radio, a suitcase and a television. Each klessebesser can trigger memories in its own specific way, such as little poems, songs, objects and movies. In that way the people experience cosy happy moments together.
The concept works the following. Each klessebesser has its own lamp. If a lamp turns on, it tells the group that its Klessebesser is active. But ‘de klessebesser’ does not reveil its content yet. It waits for an action from someone from the group. These are simple actions, such as pressing the button of the television, or turning the volume on of the radio.
While hearing poems from the telephone, listening to music from the radio, perceiving the object hidden in the suitcase, or seeing a movie on the television, people can enjoy the moment.
The fragments are tuned to the old times of the people, because they still remember that. Recognizing the fragments makes them happy en gives them a topic to talk about. for a moment they are all at the same wavelength. After that they can have a chitchat about what they listened to, saw or felt and their memories and associations with it.
More information
Please visit de Klessebessers website for more information.
Period: July 2007 – November 2007