Memory Cafes Bring Caring and Connections

Memory cafes aren’t restaurants. Instead of going for a meal, memory cafes are warm and welcoming spaces for people who have dementia and their caregivers.

These cafes – also known as dementia cafes – are places where people come together to share experiences, find support, discuss coping strategies, and connect with other people who are going through the same things, according to Senior Times. These safe spaces provide emotional support and community building for patients and the people who care for them.

Why Memory Cafes are Necessary
More than 6 million people in the US have been diagnosed with dementia. This diagnosis is very taxing for the patients who are losing memory, cognition, and basic skills as well as for their families who care for them, reported NPR. It is difficult for caregivers to get the help they need and to maintain social connections.

“One thing I have heard again and again from people who come to our memory cafe is ‘all of our friends disappeared,’” Beth Soltzberg, a social worker at Jewish Family and Children’s service of Greater Boston, where she directs the Alzheimer’s and related dementia family support program, told NPR.

Memory Cafes help to lessen the isolation felt by both the people who have been diagnosed with dementia and their caregivers. This inclusion of family members is what makes the cafes different from other programs like adult day care and is an important part of the program.

“That socialization really does help ease the stress that they feel from being a caregiver,” said Kyra O’Brien, a neurologist who teaches at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. “We know that patients have better quality of life when their caregivers are under less stress.”

Memory cafes also have a big impact on the lives of the dementia patients they serve. Rob Kennedy has been attending a cafe that meets twice a month in a community space in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. He was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s when he was in his fifties.

Kennedy recommends that other dementia patients attend memory cafes. “If they’re not coming to a place like this, they’re doing themselves a disservice. You got to get out there and see people that are laughing,” he shared.

It was hard for him to accept his diagnosis and to cope with the negative emotions surrounding it but coming to the cafe has given him a purpose and way to cope with the negative emotions around his diagnosis.

“I came in [the first time] and I was miserable,” Kennedy said. “I come in now and it’s like, its family, it’s a big, extended family. I get to meet them. I get to meet their partners. I get to meet their children. So, it’s really nice.”

Although there are plans in the US to cut health spending, it will not impact funding of the cafes in the US because they do not depend on federal money, but it may make them even more vital. Many meet in venues that do not require payment, are run by volunteers, and the only money required is for coffee, snacks, and supplies. 

In the Beginning
Memory cafes are not a new concept. In fact, according to a blog on the Insight Memory Care Center website, the first cafe opened in the Netherlands in the late 1990s and spread to other parts of Europe including the UK where government funding is provided. These cafes operate in a variety of places including churches, community centers, or cultural settings. Some even meet in actual cafes. All that’s needed is a large enough space.

The first Alzheimer’s cafe in the US opened in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2008. To date, at least 39 states have memory cafes with Wisconsin leading the pack with at least 100 in the state, reported NPR.

Wisconsin is unique because the state has a network for dementia patients with each county and recognized Native American tribe having state-funded dementia care specialists. These professionals help to connect people with dementia to community resources including memory cafes.

There is a national directory of Memory Cafes that is hosted by the organization Dementia Friendly America. This helps people establish cafes in their own communities.

“They’re not so hard to set up, they’re not expensive,” Susan McFadden, a professor emerita of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh and the cofounder of the Fox Valley Memory Project told NPR. “It doesn’t require an act of the legislature to do a memory cafe. It takes community engagement.”