Memories are precious, especially to someone suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. One way to help hang onto them is to create “memory boxes” containing objects—letters, photos, souvenirs and knick-knacks—that can trigger important recollections. And now researchers are taking the idea a step further at the Sheridan Elder Research Centre (SERC), located on the campus of the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Applied Learning. Using computers, scanners, digital cameras and other high-tech tools, they’re experimenting with the creation of virtual memory “boxes” on DVD disks. These new repositories of memory offer several advantages: they’re permanent, highly portable, have a huge capacity for documents and can also contain easily accessible audio and video files as well.
The idea is just one more way the Centre is exploring ways to improve and enrich life for seniors. The focus is on applied research into psychological and social factors. “A lot of research into aging has been conducted within a bio-medical framework,” Spadafora explains. “While that’s absolutely critical, we recognized a gap in research from a psychosocial perspective.”
The state-of-the-art research facilities at SERC, funded in part by the Ontario Innovation Trust, were designed to produce ground-breaking new ideas for improving the lives of seniors. There’s an internet café where researchers are exploring ways for aging individuals to learn and use interactive technology more effectively. A cosmetics studio is home to a project that’s looking at the link between self-esteem and lowered levels of stress. And a design studio will soon provide interior and industrial designers at Sheridan—both students and faculty—with facilities for testing room layouts, furniture and utensils created with seniors in mind.
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| Thinking Outside—and Inside—the Box An applied research facility at Sheridan Institute looks at how new technology and ideas can enrich the lives of seniors. |
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| Scanners can capture even three-dimensional objects like wedding bouquets for inclusion in virtual memory boxes. |
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Alzheimer’s disease, however, remains a major focus. The Centre now hosts an innovative day program for Alzheimer’s patients in the Halton area, operated in partnership with the Victorian Order of Nurses. The program, which brings 30 adults to the centre five days a week, is unique in Canada, and provides a laboratory setting in which to test new approaches to helping seniors cope with the early stages of the disease. In particular, a fully-equipped greenhouse and kitchen have suggested promising new ways to deal with cognitive impairment.
When Pat Spadafora was first conducting focus groups with seniors during the planning stages of the Centre, she focused on one question: “If you imagine a day in your life, what would make that day better?” It’s a question whose importance is growing as the population in Canada and the rest of the industrialized west continues to age. And applied research at the Sheridan Centre is suggesting some new and intriguing answers—answers that will help keep Ontario on the cutting edge of improving the quality of life for seniors.
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