Hello all,

I'm asked to do one on one interactions with my ventriloquist puppets at an nursing home here in Holland.
The patients all surfering from Alzheimer.
They want to see if I can get contact with these kind of people, thru my puppets.
I have an Axtell kangaroo a dodo bird and an old lady figure.
However I have no experience, and I know clever routines will not do with this kind of people.
Does someone on the list have experience in this field or have suggestions?
All help is welcome.

Regards,
Walter from Holland

My thoughts are to just interact with them. I used to do therapy with Autistic kids and puppets. Talk with the puppet and ask them questions. Also talk with them yourself. My gueess is that exploration of the unique communication with a puppet is where any therapy would happen. It won't be anything you prepare like a routine. You can also explore some of these pages:

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/unima/uniE148.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/laughtertherapy/puppettherapy.htm

http://www.masspsy.com/leading/0602_ne_art.html

I visit a home like this where most of the people have the disease. They seem to really like when I use the puppets to music of their time. SO I use the papa puppet with Frank Sinatra fly me to the moon. I use Possum with willie nelson on the road again. I have a Rowlf puppet that I use with a toy piano and my daughter does the hands as I do the head to a oldies piano type song. Then like steve said, walk around with the puppets and let them pet them and talk to them. You cant go wrong.

And I actually do my show two times in a row. They dont seem to (remember) mind and they like it both times!

Thank you Steve and Randy this very good study material!

Greetings
Walter

I used to be the assitant champlain in a nursing home that specialized in alzheimers. I found, to my surprise, they were often able to keep up with me in my shows. The fact you'll be using figures always brings a lot of them to life.

Every year, in my Santa job, several schools ahd homes in the area I work will bring the children in because we always connect. I did a good job as Santa, but Santa with a figure or a magic trick reaches even deeper.

Get your figures to ask people questions. If you have questions about celebrities in the 40s and 50s, you'll find a lot of your audience will react and even answer questions when you least expect it.

We have a lot of ethnic seniors in our assisted living homes, so I like to use Nat King Cole, or his songs, sung by Natalie Cole. They always go over well. Make sure it's her old time songs. I can't remember what the title song is! That must be a sign of something.