The nostalgic toys that can help dementia patients rekindle their memories
When Ben Atkinson-Willes’ grandfather developed dementia, Ben wanted to find ways to keep him as occupied and happy as possible.
Dementia is a condition that affects around 800,000 people in the UK, and around 36 million worldwide. It’s a disease that affects the brain in ways that make it difficult to enjoy a lot of normal activities.
Reading books, watching television, even talking with your family — all of these are incredibly hard with an increasingly fragmented and unreliable memory. Ben spent fifteen years caring for his grandfather, which made him much better placed than most to see there was a crucial need for more products and activities that cater to people with dementia. Even so, he couldn’t find anything created specifically for them.
A brain with dementia thinks very differently to a child’s brain
“Families and carers would resort to using children’s toys to provide stimulation for the people they care for. When my grandfather was first diagnosed, he was doing 1000-piece jigsaws, then 500- piece, then 250-piece, then eventually jigsaws for toddlers. These were obviously patronising and not appropriate to his needs — a brain with dementia thinks very differently to a child’s brain. But the whole care sector was using children’s toys to keep 85-year-olds entertained,” Ben explains.
In 2010, he decided to meet that need himself. At just 23, with a design degree under his belt, Ben founded Active Minds. As part of a university project, he created a range of activities for adults living with dementia. Soon, he was offered funding to turn it into a business — and an entrepreneur was born. Ben began to work closely with St. George’s Hospital and Kingston University to develop his first range of award-winning jigsaw puzzles.
“I talked a lot to families, professional carers and care homes. I really wanted to get a sense of which products would work.” One of the puzzles Ben designed features a picture of a Spitfire on it, inspired by a care home resident with dementia who used to work on them as an engineer in the war. It’s this personal touch that makes all the difference.
Active Minds’ .uk site was integral to getting the business off to a flying start. Its web presence helped it gain the attention of families and carers around the country who were in desperate need of a better quality of care. In fact, its first production line sold out within two weeks. “There was definitely a demand out there,” comments Ben.
Since the early days, Active Minds have expanded both their range and customer base. “Now we’re starting to get into hospitals, but online still remains one of the best routes to our customers,” Ben says. The Active Minds range now includes even more art and reminiscence activities. Each of these products is designed over the course of the year, which includes testing prototypes and tweaking them until they’re perfect.
“Our activities can trigger memories in small and unforeseen ways, and things that might have been lost can be remembered again.”
“What’s amazing is to see someone use one of our products and be inspired by it. One man was working on the Spitfire puzzle and out of nowhere, he said a few sentences about his time in the Navy during the war. Our activities can trigger memories in small and unforeseen ways, and things that might have been lost can be remembered again.”
Bringing back even the smallest thread of memory can offer people with dementia a way back into themselves and their own history. It’s vitally important when it can be such an isolating and unsettling condition. Thanks to Active Minds’ website and its partnerships with healthcare clients, its activities and products are now being far more widely used by people with dementia, their family and their carers.
In the past 12 months, Active Minds has sold 5,500 products — a large chunk of which has headed to the NHS and Alzheimer’s Society; and an even larger proportion of which has gone to the families and friends of those living with dementia.
As we gradually understand dementia more, we’ll be better able to meet the needs of those who have it. And with a rapidly ageing population in the UK, we’ll have all the more demand for meaningful and engaging activities in nursing and residential homes. Ben Atkinson-Willes may say that his products fit a niche, but it’s no doubt a niche that’s both incredibly important and getting bigger all the time.
This story is one of 30 celebrating the launch of .uk domain names in 1985. To read the others visit our 30 Years of .uk hub. To start your own .uk story check out www.agreatplacetobe.uk.
