A CAMPAIGN to raise funds to create a DVD aimed at helping dementia sufferers has been launched.

Community enterprise Digital Services for Care, CIC, and Greenpark Productions Ltd (est 1938), have launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £15,000 towards the costs of creating a range of reminiscence resources on DVD for older people who are developing dementia, using archive film of life in Britain from the decades after World War 2.

Brian Norris, director of Digital Services for Care, says: "By showing films from the unique collection of Greenpark Productions we have found that when people with dementia view scenes which show life in 1940s-60s, it can help to unlock memories of their early years.

"While the short term memory may have gone, older memories are usually very vivid. For the last year we have been testing the film archive content for the DVDs with patients with dementia who attend the Memory Cafes in Cornwall.

"Stimulating the memories of older people in this way can increase communication with carers, friends and family, so helping people with dementia out of their isolation and easing the stress for all concerned. Some of the patients who viewed our film clips and shared stories of childhood had apparently never spoken in their Memory Cafe meetings before; it was the visual memory triggers which brought their past to life."

According to the Alzheimer's Society there are more than 800,000 people in the UK with dementia and many people have a friend or family member who is developing memory loss.

The Living Memories campaign is being run on Crowdfunder.co.uk and the £15,000 being raised will be used to restore and digitise some of the archive films, as well as to develop and publish various memory trigger resources. These will include titles in the Living Memories series of DVDs containing archive film clips on various topics and related 40+ page Reminiscence Guides, as well as memory card games and conversation cards.

The funding will also cover the costs of subtitling film clips for people with hearing impairment and creating Braille versions of the Reminiscence Guides.

The guides can be used with the DVDs by anyone, including carers not familiar with life in the UK during the post war decades. In addition to providing information about how use the DVD effectively, the guides suggest topics to discuss and questions to ask older people after they have watched each film clip on the DVD.

The Living Memories resources are ideal for use one-to-one at home with older people and for groups of patients attending Memory Cafes, day care centres and those living in care homes.

Crowdfunding enables people with a great idea to ask the crowd most important to them for the funding they need. The project owners set a target for the money they want to raise and explain how they will use the funding.

People can then make pledges for small amounts of money in return for a reward if the target is reached. If the target is not reached the pledges are returned by Crowdfunder.co.uk.

The rewards that the Living Memories project is offering in return for pledges include a memory card game, limited edition still images, plus Living Memories DVDs and Reminiscence Guides.

For more information on the Living Memories project and to pledge visit

http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/reminiscence-resources-for-people-developing-dementia