Memory Bridge Documentary Airs on Amazon PRIME that Reveals New Way to Communicate With People Who Have Dementia Featuring Dame Evelyn Glennie

BLOOMINGTON, Indiana, June 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A new documentary "Love Is Listening: Dementia Without Loneliness" was released on Amazon PRIME on June 26 featuring Dame Evelyn Glennie, the world's premiere solo percussionist. The documentary demonstrates that loneliness need not be the inevitable condition of people with dementia. The film is produced by Memory Bridge, that also produced, "There Is a Bridge," which aired on PBS in 2007.

The documentary aims to raise public awareness of the impact that genuinely meaningful communication has on the lives of people with dementia. "I had no experience working with people with dementia whatsoever before this project," Glennie says. "The experience has changed me as a person and as a musician. I experienced listening on a whole new level."

Internationally-recognized authorities in art, science and spiritual traditions explore how the quality of our listening to people with dementia is the most important aspect of our care for them. While 70 percent of people know someone with dementia, research shows that many people "worry about what to say" to those with this condition. "Love Is Listening" demonstrates a new way of being with people who have dementia. It shows how to turn an awkward exchange into one that flows, is intimate, and combats loneliness through companionship.

The cast includes: Jean Vanier, the recently-deceased founder of L'Arche, an international foundation dedicated to the creation and growth of homes and support for people with intellectual disabilities; Dame Evelyn Glennie, the world's premiere solo percussionist who has been profoundly deaf since the age of 12; Naomi Feil who developed "Validation," a method of working with severely disoriented elderly people taught around the world; and Dr. Sue Johnson, the developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Director of the International Center for Excellence in EFT.

"Most people I meet in public relate to me as a professional musician. I have grown accustomed to that role almost as a second nature," Glennie says. "The people with dementia whom I met in this project didn't care about all of that, however. They freed me to experience things, including myself, in a new way." 

A diagnosis of dementia can predict the beginning of a life of profound loneliness. That no longer needs to be the case. We can learn to communicate in ways that dementia does not impede.

"It was awkward at first relating to people who weren't engaging with me in the socially predictable ways," Glennie says. "But on the other side of awkward a whole new way of being together suddenly opened up. I was a much poorer person before than I am now."

About Memory Bridge: Founded in 2004, Memory Bridge is a non-profit foundation that exists to end the emotional isolation of people with dementia. To date, it's connected more than 8,500 people with and without dementia in one-to-one relationships. Its multiple award-winning educational programs are hosted on three continents by dementia caregivers, hospices and schools.

For more information: https://www.memorybridge.org  

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVwnVJ6aMnM