Faith Jane Wray

This project seeks to identify and use a variety of mixed media products, as a means to bridge conversational barriers, amongst elderly patients on acute hospital wards. This on-going research is supported and funded by The Imperial College Healthcare Charity, NHS Trust.

Current statistics suggest that up to 20% of the population aged 65 and over live with a form of cognitive impairment. This often involves memory loss, changes in communication skills and altered visual interpretations. This research investigates how a specific type of holistic approach, can be a valuable addition to the current medical interventions and rehabilitation programmes on acute wards.

By gathering a diverse range of mixed media products and planning tailored creative stimulation, this form of material contact can provide a direct root into accessing human emotion and mental images. When living with a cognitive impairment such as a form of dementia, it is said that one’s emotions can still remain fully intact.

By combing various colours and tactile surfaces, the ‘material catalysts’ can be handled, seen, smelt and worked with to create an overall sensory experience. Materials have been selected from an array of new, found and manipulated products, of contrasting tactility and visual qualities. 

Colours used are bold and distinctive, often with an additional tactile surface quality to them. Palettes are chosen in response to the changes in the occipital lobe at the back of the brain, where deterioration in people living with dementia and other cognitive impairments often occurs. This area of the brain helps us to process visual information. 

This project employs practical and theoretical research, case studies and detailed evaluations from a range of busy, inner London acute hospital wards, allowing an opportunity to document real life responses.