The Active ageing and Heritage in Adult learning (AHA) project addresses older adults learning and development needs. Through the work with reminiscence the project aims at improving the quality of life and well being for people with memory problems, usually with dementia. The project will create a methodology with guidelines for how this kind of work can be carried out in a heritage setting. It will also carefully evaluate the outcomes of such activities. In addition to this AHA will also give attention to the needs of relatives and create a short course that will teach them methods of working with reminiscence at home. A similar course will also be created for staff at care homes. This will enable more people to participate in these kinds of activities. The use of heritage in this is particularly beneficial since you can build on the individual's personal memories, skills and experiences. The partners in this project are five open air museums in Europe and three Universities (two of them as part of the museum team). The museums all have previous experience of working with reminiscence for people with dementia, but believe that the quality can be greatly improved and new and innovative ways of working can be found through the cooperation. While some of the museums (Den Gamle By, Denmark, Beamish, UK, Jamtli, Sweden) have worked for several years on this and feel the need of renewal and new input other museums (Maihaugen, Norway and Szentendre Skanzen, Hungary) have recently started their activities and need the experience of the others while they have new and exciting ideas. The partner Universities (Newcastle University, Aarhus University and Linnaeus University) all work on the connection between heritage and health. Their role in the project is to facilitate a proper evaluation - since no larger scale evaluation of these kinds of activities has previously been made.
The Active ageing and Heritage in Adult learning (AHA) project addressed older adults' learning and development needs. Through the work with reminiscence the project aimed at improving the quality of life and well being for people with memory problems, usually with dementia. The project created a methodology with guidelines for how this kind of work can be carried out in a heritage setting. It also carefully evaluated the outcomes of such activities. In addition to this the AHA project also gave attention to the needs of relatives and created a short course that taught them methods of working with reminiscence at home. A similar course was also created for staff at care homes. This made it possible for more people to participate in these kinds of activities. The use of heritage in this was found to be particularly beneficial, since you can build on the individual's personal memories, skills and experiences. The partners in this project were five open air museums in Europe and three Universities. The museums all had previous experience of working with reminiscence for people with dementia, but through this project the quality could be significantly improved and new and innovative ways of working were found through the cooperation. While some of the museums (Den Gamle By, Denmark, Beamish, UK, Jamtli, Sweden) have worked for several years on this and felt the need of renewal and new input, other museums (Maihaugen, Norway and Szentendre Skanzen, Hungary) have recently started their activities and needed the experience of the others, while they themselves contributed to the project with new and exciting ideas. The partner Universities (Newcastle University, Aarhus University and Linnaeus University) all work on the connection between heritage and health. Their role in the project was to facilitate a proper evaluation - since no larger scale evaluation of these kinds of activities has previously been made. The results of the project show that reminiscence session in open air museum settings are beneficial for people with dementia. The evaluation show that during the sessions the participants experience improved wellbeing. The project also made the museums adjust their ways of working to achieve greater impact and reflection on the work and learning by the staff. The courses created by the project were successful, even though cultural differences and systems made the impact of course for relatives different in different countries. The course for professional carers, however, was highly popular and there is a demand for a continuation of this offer.