Adam Sandler's 2004 movie '50 First Dates' has evoked a brilliant idea to help dementia patients who suffer from morning fog of forgetfulness that can often cause them agitation and fear.
According to Aol, Hebrew Home at Riverdale started a unique pilot program of prerecording the messages from family members of the patients to help victims of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.
Louise Irving, a 94-year-old patient of dementia, wake up every morning with a video of a familiar face and a familiar voice from a laptop wheeled to her bedside and sparking a flicker of recognition.
Charlotte Dell, director of social services at Hebrew Home said that after watching the movie she thought to translate the video trick to the residents with memory loss, so that the problem can be solved without using drugs and also to make the patients' day pleasant with the messages of their loved ones.
Notably, in the movie Sandler used videos to remind her beloved played by Drew Barrymore that how much he loved her as she had a brain-injury and used to lose her memory every day.
Ruth Drew, director of family and information services for the association said that memory tools like videos and photos get a lot of use, but to have a couple of minutes with a loved one as a way to start out the day, sounds very unusual, whereas Robert Abrams, a geriatric psychiatrist at New York Presbyterian Hospital, called it an innovative and thoughtful idea.
The Hebrew Home plans to evaluate the program after this month and may expand it to more of the several hundred residents in its memory-care neighborhoods.
