The Dementia Toolkit for Small and Medium Museums is a result of 2 years' research by Canterbury Christ Church University's Salomons Centre for Applied Psychology, the Alzheimer's Society in West Kent and Tunbridge Wells Museum & Art Gallery, and aims to help museums develop similar projects. The research findings were recently presented at the national Museums Association annual conference in Birmingham on 5 November by Professor Camic and Mr Kimmel.
Professor Paul Camic said: 'The research project involved 80 people with early to mid-stage dementia over a 2 year period. We found that handling and talking about museum objects in small groups of people with dementia helped to improve their sense of wellbeing.'
Jeremy Kimmel, Audience Development Officer at the Museum & Art Gallery had this to say: "It's about trying to help as many people as possible and making museums as relevant as possible to everybody. This toolkit is for everybody, and can be used by anybody."
