Preserving Life Stories of the Elderly

A caregiver can act as someone who can preserve the stories of those elderly folks that they care for. As a caregiver, this can be a great experience to learn more about the person you care for. Thus, if you are acting as a caregiver for your parent, this is a great chance to bond and bring a positive experience into your parent’s life.

What You Will Need To Do To Preserve Stories

It doesn’t need to be a complicated process to preserve the stories of the person that you care for. All you really need is something to record a story with. This can be your phone or even a tape recorder. It will be up to you if you simply want to create a video or audio recording.

Give the person under your care a few days to think about the different stories they may want to tell. Then pick a day that you will record and upload the stories to either a computer file, a flash drive, or a zip drive.

In this case, an audio recording may be a better option than a video recording. Because of that, allowing the storyteller to focus solely on the components of the story as opposed to how they look in a video recording can add to the way the story is told. Hence the more comfortable the person telling the story is, the more likely it is they will remember all details and fluently tell the story.

Before the recording, ask the person telling the story to think about some experiences of the past they can share. Be sure to also come with some questions of your own that will keep the story going. Sometimes people can forget details and it will stop the flow of the story. And remember to be patient and attentive.

The Benefits of Stories and Storytelling for the Elderly

Story telling allows anyone of any age to reminisce about a past experience. For elderly adults, this can provide them with an opportunity to talk about past positive experiences. And, it can also allow them to reminisce on times that may not have been so positive. Hence, the benefit of this is the ability to both purge negative experiences and remind them of their positives ones.

Conclusion

Storytelling and the process of preserving those stories is one of many activities that can benefit the person you care for. It can be a great bonding experience for you as a caregiver. It will ultimately reveal some details about the person’s life that can help you understand and connect with them.

We at Homecare Powered by AUAF are dedicated to providing exceptional care to you or a loved one through our caregivers. If you have any questions about our caregivers or how you can be a caregiver yourself give us a call at 773.274.9262.