Sound Memories Summer Wildflower Gallery

As the Founder & Director of Sound Memoires Dementia Friendly Radio, I know only too well how difficult the Summer can be for older people who can no longer freely come outdoors. As part of my work I have taken into Care Homes pictures of Wildflowers just growing simply on the roadside and they have given so much joy to people. That is what has inspired me to launch the Summer Wildflower Gallery at Sound Memories Radio.

On our facebook Group Page we have invited our friends to take photographs. Each month, we have a Flower of the Month and we launch with the beautiful Foxgloves that are dancing along the West Wales country lanes, just now.

If you would like to take part and exhibit some of your photographs, feel free to join our group page to find out how.

We are looking for a sponsor for our Wildflower Gallery. We need @ £250.00 to cover the admin costs for the whole Summer. If you feel that this is something you would like to sponsor, then feel free to get in touch. Or, if you would like to make a donation, why not visit our gofundme page.

Have a lovely summery day, friends, really feel it, appreciate the wild flowers on your journey, make a memory that one day, you can return to.

With love

Cheryl

Top Tips for Recording Dementia Friendly Environmental Sound

Recording Fact Sheet: Sound Memories Radio

It’s so lovely that people have been sending in sound recordings to be included in our Dementia Friendly, Environmental Sound Map. 

When we are making dementia friendly recordings at Sound Memories Radio, we have to make sure that the sound is what we call ‘clean’ or ‘pure’ that is, without background noise. 

If you want to join in recording for us, here are a few of my Top Tips. If you follow them, it is more likely that your recording will be included.

   1. Whatever you are using to record, you are better to put it down somewhere so that it does not pick up the sound of your hands or the crinkle of your coat or your footsteps, breath, sneeze, sniff … etc

  2. Try to be sure that everyone with you (including the dog) knows that you are recording and ask them kindly to be quiet. Even if they tip toe around in the background, the sound may be picked up by someone with hyperacusis, a sound distortion commonly experienced by people who are in the later stages of dementia.

3. Make sure there is no background traffic noise; the worst culprit for this is the road noise in the distance because although you might think ‘Oh that’s not very loud,’ to someone with hyperacusis, it may well end up being louder than your birdsong, river, sea etc. 

4. Listen back to your recordings as a tester and try a few times is the best. Rivers are very difficult to capture unless you are up close to them. Off course, be careful not to fall in or drop your phone. (Bit of essential Health and Safety there) 

5. Record for @ 3 or 4 minutes. This is why it is good to put your recording equipment down safe, because even light things get heavy after a while.

6. Try using your voice recorder on your phone. This is much easier for me to use. If you send me a video it creates an awful lot of work for me because I have to take the sound off your video through my mixing desk in my upstairs studio and then upload it to my computer, whereas when it is sent as an audio file, I can use it as it is. 

7. Please inbox your audio files to me, Cheryl Beer, via the Sound Memories Radio Group Page on facebook. 

8. If you really like contributing and are likely to do it on an ongoing basis, you might like to think about investing in a Tascam hand held recorder. This is what I use. It has 2 mics and picks up good surround sound for a relatively cheap piece of kit. But, buy a new one, is my advice, so you know there are no issues with it. I have been using these for years and to my mind, simple is the best option. There is one with a 4 track recorder, you don’t need that because you are capturing real, authentic sound, so just get the one track version which comes in at @ £75. That may sound like a alot but mine has lasted for years and I use it for loads of things. 

Oh and the other great thing that I nearly forgot, is that you can buy a sound excluder for it, which is a fluffy microphone shield. It comes with a sponge one but the fluffy ones are better. That way you are less likely to get that horrible wind noise.

9. If you do buy a tascam make sure you press record. I know that sound obvious, but when you press record once, it flashes but is not recording. It’s a chance for you to test the sound levels and adjust them. Then set up the recorder and press record the second time, being sure to keep very still and quiet. 

10. And finally, I think it’s wonderful that you want to help us. Thank you so much but if your recordings are not used, it will be because of the sound quality and not the beautiful gesture you have made. 

11. PS: When you send me your recordings, please tell me what you have recorded and where, so that I can tell those that are listening and it will be nice to put your name too, so that people know who has kindly helped us.

I think that's everything but if something else pops to mind, I will come back and edit this page ... and likewise, if you have any questions just pop along to the group page. Right, I'm off out in the sun to make the most of the woods.

  Thank you once again, for helping me to bring the outdoors to those who are no longer able to go outside.

Up Close With Nature: A New Creative Approach to End Stage Dementia & Sound Distortion

As the Director and Founder of Sound Memories Dementia Friendly Radio Station  I have found that a one to one approach when working with people best accommodates the needs of each individual, which vary greatly depending on the type and stages of dementia that each person experiences.

At Sound Memories Radio, our Life Story Channel was born from my MA assignment, working with Louie, a 92 year old woman living in a dementia friendly care home in Carmarthenshire. 

The Life story Channel is aimed at people with early stage dementia, helping with memory loss and providing peer stories for reminiscence.

Then we have our Environmental Sound Map which was an idea born from my work with Mary, who had end stage dementia and longed for the sounds of the farm. Her emotional response to the local sound map I created for her, led to a more extensive piece of work capturing sound maps for other older people.

But research now shows that people who are living with end stage dementia or semantic dementia are more likely to feel discomfort with sound such as music, speech and background noise, as these are complex acoustic signals that rely on the cognitive processes which are effected by dementia. In fact, a high percentage of people with end stage or semantic dementia are known to experience tinnitus and hyperacusis. I know first hand how debilitating these conditions can be.

This is an interesting article about it  HERE from the US National Institute of Health.

We also know that for people with end stage dementia, their lives can become very small and based indoors, so they can no longer visit the places that used to give them joy.

Taking all of these facts into consideration, and also knowing the noisy environments that hospitals and homes can be, I am currently collating a sound free, nature video library. The intention is that the older person with sound intolerance can wear sound excluding headphones  and watch the slowly moving films of their local areas such as parks, museum grounds etc. This way, they can stay connected to outdoors.

You can see one of the films as an example HERE.

I am currently looking for a Research Partner to provide funding so that I can take the work into Care Homes. I would like to trial the films with 3 older people who are living dementia and sound distortion to measure the benefits. 

If you feel that you or your organisation would like to fund this work with me, please feel free to get in touch to talk it through. 

Alternatively, if you would like to make a donation towards the work, here is a link to our GOFUNDME page. Thank you.

Stepping over the 50 threshold

Once again today, I am being bombarded online with adverts asking me ...  'Over 50? Need a Life Plan? Who will cover your funeral costs and look after your loved ones?'

What it should read is 'Over 50, need a hand deconstructing negative stereotypes?' That would certainly be a big fat YES.

Stepping over the 50 threshold has been a frightening insight into the inherent ageism that is woven through every day life. I have become acutely aware of how social media portrays us. 

I spent my entire youth campaigning for the rights of young people, so that we were heard and had a voice. Now it seems, I will spend my entire journey into older age, campaigning for older people to have the same. So be it. 

It is one of the reasons why I set up the Award Winning Sound Memories Dementia Friendly Radio Station,  empowering us to support each other in making our own memory resources through telling our story. As Gandhi kindly taught us, we must be the change we want to see in the world. If you would like to make a contribution to Sound Memories Radio, here's a link to our GOFUNDME page. We are currently raising funds to pay for our website hosting. Loving thanks.

Sound Memories Dementia Friendly Radio

As Sound Memories Dementia Friendly Radio moves to Quiet Space Studio with me this week, there are some exciting things in the pipeline. 

Since March, I have only been well enough to keep the radio station ticking over but now that my mojo is tip toeing her way back (since my hearing aids) then it feels right to step back into the arena.

I have a number of projects that I have pitched for so watch this space and pray. I've got no core funding for this project and depend totally on contracts and good will, mostly mine! But it feels like such important work. 

I particularly want to develop the Environmental Soundscapes which we call Story Sound Maps but are actually Ethnographic Sound Maps as they are tailored to meet the sound backdrop of those living with dementia in our area, and the digital stories are then shared on the radio station for our 500 plus listeners to enjoy. Here's an example from a local farm of 2 very pregnant sows the day before the piglets arrived.

We also want to develop our inter-generational conversations through working in education following the success of our Voices of the Valleys Project earlier this year where I trained children from 7 schools, in the collation of oral histories and making of digital stories with the older community in Rhondda Cynon Taff. Here's an example ... 

           

I will leave you with this thought: Sound is the last memory to leave us. It is an old friend reminding us of who we are.