3.5 Strategies to help with changes to memory and thinking

There are a lot of strategies for ‘getting around’ difficulties with memory and thinking. Read these ideas below, talk to other people living with dementia and work towards applying strategies in your own life.

Memory aids

Memory aids are the simplest of strategies, many of which you will already use. Shopping lists, diaries, calendars and electronic reminders are all memory aids most of us use every day. On this page we provide lists of common problems and useful memory aids. However, people with dementia have told us the issue is often to remember to use the memory aid! You can help by making the memory aid highly visible, for example a large calendar on the fridge, a whiteboard in the kitchen with important information or a sign at eye height on the back of the front door asking, “Have you got your house keys?”

Memory aids need a consistent system of use to become a habit. It takes many, many repetitions to develop a new habit. When you start a new system you will need prompts to remember to use if. Enlist family members to give you a prompt to use the memory aid, and to not do the task for you.

Memory aid ideas

If you forget to do things at the right time

• Use paper and pencil diaries, alarms on the phone or an alarm clock.
• Sarah uses a white board in the kitchen. She sets it up every week with her daughter and lists what she is doing, when and where.
• If you have a smartphone, use Virtual Assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple’s Siri because it’s easy to set reminders which sound an alert which also tell you what you need to do. To set the alarm, you just say to your phone or device “Alexa, set a reminder for me to take my medication at 4pm every day” or “OK Google, remind me to leave for the doctor at 8:30am on Tuesday 22nd May”. When at home, you can also set and get the reminders through a home speaker device connected to those systems (e.g. Amazon Echo, or Apple Homepod).
• This video shows how easy it is to set a reminder using an Alexa.

If you can’t find items or remember to take items with you

• Set up a place for everything in your home. For items like keys, sunglasses, phone, wallet, walking stick and so on, have a place to keep them. Try labelling the place. Ask family to give you a reminder to use the chosen place. For example, a basket near the front door with labels “Glasses” “Keys” “Wallet” provides a reminder of what goes where. For mobile phones, select one or two places in the home and place a charger there. Work on developing a habit of leaving the phone plugged in at that spot.
• Place a sign on the back of the door you leave the house by saying “Have you got your keys, wallet and phone?” George told us he ignored this sign until he printed a big red traffic “stop” sign and stuck this on top of this list. He said “Now I always stop and look”.
• Technology companies provide ways of tracking items such a lost mobile phone, watch or tablet. For example, Apple has a “Find My” app to locate missing items. You can use this app to locate items on a map, or send a message to the item to display a message on the lost item’s screen giving a phone number for the finder to call. You can program the item to make a sound if it is connected to the internet. If you share accounts with other family members, other members of your family can help to locate the item. Visit Apple for an example of what is possible.
• There are small tags that can be attached to individual items, including hat, coats, bags and walking sticks. Tags range from inexpensive and simple, to sophisticated devices. One brand of tag can even be programmed to alert you if you move more than a specified distance away from your belongings. This link takes you to a review article which shows a range of tags.
• Even simpler, use bright coloured key rings, phone cases and so on, that stand out from their surroundings and are easy to find – even in a large handbag.

Make sure you have back-up plans in place early

• Things can get misplaced or put in a ‘safe place’. (We all do this from time-to-time!) This can be very stressful, wearing and sometimes expensive to replace misplaced items.
• Have spares. Spare keys, spare glasses, spare medication, spare hearing aids and so on. Consider installing a key safe outside your home and set the combination to something you remember easily (but is hard for others to guess).
• Make copies of the contents of your wallets or purses. Take everything out of your wallet. Photocopy or photograph all your cards, front and back. Store this copy in a safe place or give to a person you trust. If your wallet goes missing it makes the job of notifying banks and other institutions a great deal easier.
• Make copies of important documents. Wills, Powers of Attorney, mortgage and insurance documents and so on. These can be scanned and stored securely online or consider keeping copies off site in a secure location.
• Password management. In our increasingly online world almost everything requires a password. If you do not have one already consider getting a password manager, which is a secure piece of software where you can store all passwords. Make sure passwords to computers, tablets and phones are also stored in very secure places.