The resource pack is the result of a collaboration between Age Exchange and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM). Age Exchange Reminiscence Arts Practitioners and professional care staff at Greenvale Specialist Care Unit and Chelsham House created the Activity Recipe Cards together to share their learning with carers around the country.

“Reminiscing and life history work can be a powerful way of communicating with a person with dementia. It can be the basis for enjoyable time spent together and a way for the person with dementia to feel empowered. Successfully incorporating meaningful creative reminiscence activities into planned daily care, based on individual patient preference, need and life history is a valuable addition to current work in an organisation. Offering support for 5, 10, or 30 minutes really responds to the specific needs of the patient/service user.”

Nuala Conlan Involvement Lead, Psychological Medicine and Older Adults Directorate
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

“You work in a busy place and have lots of tasks to complete every day. You often have to drop what you are doing to respond to a crisis. Now you have to think of creative activities for the people you work with…

You don’t have time to think of ideas

You don’t have many resources."

Our resource pack consists of 30 activity recipe cards separated in to 12 five-minute activities, 12 30-minute activities and 6 half day activities. The activities are designed to enrich relationships between staff and those they care for, make activity planning less time consuming and enabling staff at all levels to confidently deliver person-centred care to support people living with dementia.

Age Exchange were privileged to observe care staff at work, listen to them talk about their daily pressures and discuss with them the skills and activities they wished they could develop to enhance the care they provide.

Key benefits of the Activity Recipe Cards

• Enabling staff, at all levels, in the health and social care sector to confidently deliver activities, enhancing person-centred care for people living with dementia
• Strengthening relationships between staff and those they care for, building trust and rapport
• Boosting staff morale and encouraging staff retention by fostering more personalised, gratifying work
• Improving well-being for those living with dementia, reducing anxiety and in-turn assisting the delivery of medical interventions
• Providing a strong foundation in understanding good reminiscence practice, with unique insights from practitioners with a wealth of experience
• Reducing the time needed to come up with creative ideas, providing more time to spend with those in receipt of care
• Giving staff the opportunity to learn new skills without being away on training; new staff can pick up the activities and begin using them straight away
• Ensuring high quality care, with activities having been developed alongside frontline staff and tried and tested on those in their care
• Adhering to infection control issues by being hygiene safe (can be wiped down)
• Being a tangible, practical resource that can be picked up and utilised time and time again

The Activity Recipe Cards are consistent with the NICE guidelines for dementia care. They chime with the interventions suggested to promote cognition, independence and wellbeing, that states staff should, ‘offer a range of activities to promote wellbeing that are tailored to the person's preference’ and ‘consider group reminiscence therapy’.

What health care professionals have to say about the Activity Recipe Cards

“Good quality, full of inspiring ideas. Easy to use” – HCA

“Very clear simple activities broken down into easy to follow steps. Like the idea of having times to encourage activity even if short of time.” – NHS trust OT

Buy an Activity Recipe Card resource pack

Purchase your Activity Recipe Card resource pack £49 from our online shop

If you would like to order 5-10 we offer a discounted price of £45 each.

If you would like to order a bespoke amount, please drop us an email hello@age-exchange.org.uk or call on 0208 318 9105 for a quote.

Please note that orders can be placed with a debit or credit card only. Unfortunately, we are currently unable to accept payments by PayPal.