Our Active Minds (AM) service was designed for individuals living with mild to moderate memory loss. It uses a therapy called Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST) to maintain an individual’s memory, to delay the progression of Alzheimer’s and other similar dementia diagnosis.

Mike started joining a small group session every Wednesday morning. The group consisted of 4 people and a specialist facilitator each week they would talk, discuss topics of interest and the facilitator would prepare a carefully targeted stimulating session that pushed their minds through words, numbers, reminiscence or other systems. Each session lasted around 2 hours and there was lots of laughter, engagement and fun. Mike engaged really well and family/friends noticed an immediate increase in his language, his social confidence and his mood.

A year later Mike now attends for 2 sessions a week. They are the highlight of his week and he continues to communicate well. We have been measuring Mike from the moment he started with us and each week the facilitator has taken a set of measures to gage his communication, his memory, his executive function, happiness, movement and social engagement. What has been so amazing over the year is that in each of the measured fields Mike has remained completely stable we have noted no decline in his memory or communication. Probably more importantly he continues to remain living alone, independent and even moved house during the year (a stressful process for even the most mentally & physically well).

The group he joined on a Wednesday morning over a year ago have become good friends and support each other through advice, emotional support and the laughter they share in the sessions. Mike is why we run Active Minds, he shows us that we can delay decline, we can continue to remain independent and we can have a full social life!