Starting a conversation is a powerful tool for memory care dining, but not always easy

Since food and gathering to eat food has always been associated with community and sharing, when a person’s brain changes, this important aspect can sadly be lost, turning mealtimes into a tough, even scary situation instead of a nourishing break in the day.

This is a concerningly common occurrence, with 6.7 million people aged 65 and older living with Alzheimer’s as of last year. As a foodservice provider for memory care facilities across the country, Cura’s clinical and culinary teams have a real-time workshop in terms of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to making mealtimes (and quality of life) better for the thousands of seniors they serve.

Cura’s overall program for dining with dignity includes innovating with purees for those with swallowing issues, and Conversation Starters, a series of 3x5 cards with words and pictures that help staffers who may not know exactly how to engage with residents—particularly memory-impaired residents—in the times before, during and after meals. Since the distant past is often closer to some residents, the cards have a retro design and bring up topics from old times and universal experiences like holidays, pets, vacations and jobs.

Menno Haven, a retirement community in Southern Pennsylvania, is one example of memory care professionals putting Cura’s plan into action. The cards have been working well for Menno Haven Clinical Supervisor of Memory Care Homes Joseph Setaro II, LPN, CDP and Shawn Keilholtz, a Menno Haven memory home activities team member.

“When we use the Connections Conversation Starters during mealtime, it really gets the memory care residents engaged and talking about all sorts of topics,” Setaro says.

The cards also help staff members, especially younger ones, know how to approach chatting with memory care residents. It doesn’t always come easily, Keilholtz has found.

“Younger staff may not know how to engage with a resident,” she says. “A lot of times, newer people are scared that they won’t know what to say. How many times can you ask a resident, ‘How was your day?’ The cards help us get away from the same mundane questions, and that’s how you engage the resident.”

Keilholtz has found a lot of success working with the Conversation Starter cards in smaller groups of two or three residents, and the topics that seem to work best are pets and gardening. “You can show a picture of a cat, and ask, ‘Did you have a pet growing up? Do you remember the name and what color it was?’ Or, a lot of residents have lived on a farm, and you can get them to remember the vegetable garden and back in the day maybe they did canning. That gets quite a bit of good conversation.”

A recent cookout was a nice change of pace for residents at Menno Haven. | Photo courtesy of Cura

The team puts on events like a big cookout recently, and has found that even menu items themselves can spark conversation: the good old classics like pot pie, spaghetti and pizza. And of course, the perennial senior dining surefire crowd-pleaser: Ice cream. “We have an entire freezer dedicated to it,” Setaro says. “We have some residents who are not super verbal, but when they see the ice cream … We all scream for ice cream; that’s really true.”