In April 2020, at the beginning of Australia’s pandemic lockdown, an innocent home video shared on Facebook opened the door for over 100,000,000 people peering inside our family’s life living with dementia.
It’s no secret that caring for someone with dementia requires highly individualised care, yet there’s very few accessible resources to help a family navigate the huge shift in mindset required. Our family’s approach to living with my mother’s dementia started no differently. We bumbled through the early years of Alzheimer’s and Vascular Dementia clutching at straws and questioning everything we did to combat Oma’s advancing dementia.
With lockdown further insulating our family, we playfully discovered our new way to cope. Instead of battling dementia, we decided to face and embrace it. Our whole family got involved with creating increasingly whimsical experiences that aligned with Oma’s shifting perception of presence and memories.
In this uplifting workshop, I will share with you the mindset and techniques we used to diffuse the frustrations of dementia and let (what was missing in memories) guide the playful storytelling activities that brought us closer together as a family, and inspired a global dementia community to join us.

VIDEO ABSTRACT