To Whom I May Concern® as an Intervention for Early-Stage Dementia-Related Illnesses
To Whom I May Concern® serves as an intervention for early-stage dementia-related illnesses, benefiting both the audiences who hear the stories and the people aware of cognitive changes who participate in guided storytelling within the Sharing Groups. Cast members in...
PACCs: People Aware of Cognitive Changes
By Maureen Matthews, RN, PhD “We hate the word ‘dementia! We’re not demented!” We hear this over and over again from participants in To Whom I May Concern® who seek an alternative to the common terminology of “People with Dementia.” In a...
Narrative Agency: The Importance of Storytelling for People with Dementia
Narrative agency is important for everyone, including for people with dementia. Why? Humans are storytellers, and the ability to tell stories is essential to us. We build our identities through the stories we share about ourselves. Our stories help us maintain...
Just Give Me a Minute: The Key to Including People with Dementia
The inclusion of people living with dementia in their families, friend circles, and communities is fundamentally about slowing down. In our society, where speed and efficiency are valued, slowness is often perceived as a weakness. However, the experiences shared by...
Recruit-ability: Enlisting Support with Stories
Videos of puppies and babies inundate social media! Having experienced both the joy of caring for puppies and the challenges of raising babies, I’m struck by the immense effort both demand. Despite the sleepless nights (thanks to babies and puppies alike), the...To Whom I May Concern® Returns to Manhattan in First Performance by CaringKind Sharing Group
Here’s something you don’t hear often: One hundred and fifty people listened for an hour to four people living with early-stage cognitive loss as they told their stories of getting and sharing the diagnosis, adapting to life with dementia, reactions of...
Who’s at the heart of a dementia friendly community?
By Laura Bowley, TWIMC Partner and Director, Mindset Centre for Living with Dementia So many times products and systems are designed without consulting with the people who will use them—the end users if you will. How many times have you heard a bank teller, customer...Finding Transformation in Heartbreaking Stories
By Rev. Dr. Bill Matthews “What It’s Like…” I’ve heard my wife, Maureen, the Founder of To Whom I May Concern®, ask this simple question “What is it like?” more times than I can count. I’ve been to every TWIMC performance since the first in 2006, where answers to that...We all need a place where everybody knows your name!
– Maureen Matthews, RN, PhD, Founder of To Whom I May Concern® People of a certain age might remember the weekly sitcom Cheers, about a Boston watering hole where the ‘regulars’ showed up for some beer and companionship. The bartender welcomed everyone and...This Is My Voice
“This Is My Voice” is a one-hour documentary that gives a face and a voice to early onset dementia and provides an educational experience that changes hearts and minds.
Click here to download This Is My Voice.