Experimental program uses meals to help dementia patients unlock memories
By Itay Hod
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SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — Most dinner parties are about creating fond memories. For 87-year old Arthur Shostak, this particular night is about retrieving them.
Once a professor, Shostak’s words don’t come as easily as they used to. His son Mark said his memories are slipping away.
“He is asking within a short period of time about things that we had just discussed,” Mark Shostak said.
On one recent evening, Shostak was getting ready for a special meal designed to stir up his senses.
For two weeks, he’d been working on recreating one of his favorite dishes from his childhood: his mother’s recipe for a Jewish potato pancake called a Latke.
“You have to grate the potatoes, you have to grate the onions, you have to get used to the tears,” Arthur Shostak said.
It’s those kinds of memories, that Jake Broder, a playwright and fellow at UCSF’s Global Brain Health Institute is trying to unlock.
The idea for this new experimental program is simple: use food to bring forgotten stories back to life.
“We work with people every day and do interviews…until they go, ‘Ahh!’ There’s a moment of this is what it tasted like and the stories flow,” Broder said.
Studies have already shown that music can unlock memories from the past.
Dr. Adrienne Green, the CEO of the San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living is betting the same thing can happen with food.
“They’re just coming back to life in ways that we don’t see every day,” she said.
During a dinner party, residents got to share their dishes with the group and read a story they wrote with the help from specialists.
For Shostak’s son Mark, it was truly a night to remember.
“I’m not sure he remembers writing it but it was in his own words and his own voice and that was wonderful to hear,” he said.
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