Reminiscence: improving the quality of life for older adults.

Recently a Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) on a busy oncology unit was encouraging a 90 year-old gentleman to drink his prescribed supplement when he started talking about the days he had spent on a ship during World War II as a navy officer. He talked about the fact that he had been young and that he had visited many places. During this time he had met his wife of over 60 years who was now dead. While he drank his supplement, his face sparkled with excitement as he talked about how they met, how they danced, and how she laughed at his jokes. The nurse left him to care for other patients but noticed that he had drank all his supplement in a much shorter time and now he was sleeping peacefully with a look of contentment on his face. Reminiscence, once thought to be detrimental to older adults, is now an evidence-based therapeutic intervention for older adults. Structured reminiscence is a planned process of interaction between individuals in which past events are recalled and individuals talk about their life. Reminiscing is an independent nursing intervention used in a variety of settings including longterm care, assisted living, and independent living.1 Administered in both group and individual settings, reminiscence recall is intended to prompt forgotten memories, increase emotional awareness, and cultivate social interaction in older adults.2 In 2007, Bohlmeijer et al, in a meta-analysis of 15 controlled outcome studies, concluded that reminiscence could have potentially positive outcomes for psychological well-being in older adults.3 The recommendationwas that there was a need to develop well-defined protocols. A review of both qualitative and quantitative studies on reminiscence’s effect on the well-being of older persons determined that no standardized protocol existed for reminiscence and that it was difficult to determine the strength of studies because the studies could not be replicated. One problem experienced by nurses is how to organize, facilitate, and evaluate reminiscence groups for older people. Hence, there is a need for