Sep 27, 2014 4 min read

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Cathy Glumac, client services supervisor with Home Instead Senior Care in Bethel Park, shows a memory box created in memory of a client who has died.

Jim McNutt/Observer-Reporter

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Cathy Glumac, client services supervisor with Home Instead Senior Care in Bethel Park, is encouraging families and caregivers to create a memory box for loved ones or patients who are suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia.

Jim McNutt/Observer-Reporter

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Cathy Glumac can visualize her mother opening a box designed to jog old and treasured memories, and handling her old bread pan, discolored and misshapen after years of daily use. She can only imagine the long conversations the two would share as a result.

“I would take that bread pan and fill it up with some smaller, memorable things,” Glumac said of constructing a memory box for her mother, Ruth Stark, 87. “She was also good with numbers. That would be a very interesting box.”

Glumac, client services supervisor with Home Instead Senior Care in Bethel Park, is encouraging families and caregivers to create a memory box for loved ones or patients who are deep in the clutches of Alzheimer’s or dementia. Memory boxes are intended to trigger old memories and encourage interaction and conversation.

“You have to know that person’s history, their likes and dislikes, hobbies,” Glumac said. “This box should appeal to the person.”

Glumac said the contents should also appeal to the five senses: taste, smell, touch, sound and sight.

“We’re taking it to an elementary level,” she said. “There are no limitations.”

Home Instead Senior Care began promoting the memory boxes earlier this month. Lucy Cichon, owner of the Home Instead Senior Care office serving southwest Allegheny and Washington counties, said the boxes can be very beneficial.

“For those struggling with Alzheimer’s or related dementia, smell, touch, taste, sight and sound can be a powerful memory trigger,” she said. “Something as simple as the feel of an old baseball glove, the familiar texture of seashells collected on vacation or childhood photos are the types of items that hold classic memories. A memory box containing these meaningful memory joggers can be a source of pleasure and encouragement for a loved one as they make the journey into old age.”

Glumac said her mother suffers from a form of vascular dementia. She is unable to remember what she ate for breakfast but can quickly pull a memory from her days as a stay-at-home mom and later a bank officer. She’s contemplating creating a memory box for Stark.

“It’s something you could do with them every day,” she said.

Because the idea is so new, Glumac said caregivers have not yet had the opportunity to create boxes with their clients. To help illustrate the concept, Glumac and staff members created a box in memory of a client who died in 2013. Glumac said the client, Joan Omer, 91, of Upper St. Clair, was quite a fashionista, prompting the staff to create her memory box from a pink and white hat box, filling it with fashion magazines, scarves, lipstick and purses.

“I can just see Joanie opening her box,” Glumac said. “I can see her pulling out the gloves and trying them. I can see her picking up a purse and saying she had one similar.”

Sarah Ergler, a service coordinator and part-time caregiver for Home Instead Senior Care, is looking forward to implementing the idea with her clients.

“It’s beneficial for the loved ones and the patients,” Ergler said. “It can be great for starting a conversation and can improve the quality of life.”

Regardless if they remember when or why they used a particular item, Ergler said patients will realize the item is theirs and “connect back.”

“They can see it, question it and recognize it,” she said.

Both women look forward to hearing success stories from loved ones.

“People with these diseases, they find joy every day in different things,” Glumac said. “As long as we can engage and keep them active, that’s what is important.”