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The use of fairy tale telling for people with dementia as a psychosocial intervention
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Veröffentlicht: | 30. April 2018 |
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The project “Once upon a time… FAIRY TALES AND DEMENTIA”, initiated and conducted by the German Centre for Fairy Tale Culture, was accompanied by our Tales+Dementia+Study. Project and study were financed by the German Federal Ministry of Family Affaires. The project offered regular fairy tale narrations twice a week in five nursing homes located in Berlin, Frankfurt/Main and near Hamburg. 62 nursing home residents with dementia took part.
The study used a qualitative, multi perspective and participatory design to analyse and understand the effects of fairy tale narrations on the participants. The leading questions were: Do fairy tale narration as psychosocial intervention improve the participants’ well-being?
Data were collected through video recordings of the participants and storytellers and short memos of the sessions, free observations of the participants in everyday situations, guideline interviews with nurses and storytellers, and analysis of documentation. The data were analysed via video interaction and content analysis – always organized as group sessions.
The analysis of 20 hrs. of videos and 21 interviews proved that activity and social interaction were encouraged by fairy tale narrations and competences were (re)activated and challenging behaviour – especially agitation, fear and apathy – were significantly reduced during the story telling sessions. An enhanced well-being became apparent during the events of story-telling.
The study provides scientific evidence that structured sessions of free fairy tale narrating addresses the needs of people with dementia, reduces their challenging behaviour, activates the participants’ resources during the events and should be offered regularly to enhance their well-being.