Originally set up in the Denny Smith Unit, at the old Mount Gould Hospital. The Unit provided a wide range of rehabilitation and older people's services with many of the patients in the unit working towards returning to their own homes.
The Unit relocated to a newly built home on the same site towards in the autumn of 2006. The project helped give patients a sense of continuity with the sessions continuing in the Brunel Unit within the new Centre.
Zest working in partnership with staff at the unit and Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery has set up the “Remember" project enabling patients to meet regularly to explore and share their memories.
Patients and staff from the unit meet regularly with a voluntary helper for coffee once a fortnight when a member of the Plymouth City Museum Outreach team brings in items from the Museum collections. These items have a real meaning for patients and acting as a focus for the sessions often sparking off lively and animated discussions and memories.
The project has had a real impact on the Unit creating a bond between patients and staff. Panels have been created illustrating the sessions and these have been hung around the Unit providing a new and interesting attraction to share with visiting friends and relatives. These panels have been rehung in the unit's new home where the sessions will continue to be a welcome part of patient life.
The rather dry sounding research findings that "reminiscing" improves the way many patients feel by enhancing their emotional well-being and reducing feelings of isolation, loneliness and depression is given a very human face at the Denny Smith Unit.
