In Vermont, more than 13,000 people are living with Alzheimer’s disease, and most live at home.
If you’re one of their caregivers, you’re probably exhausted, so it can be tempting to put your loved one in front of the television when you need a break. But regular programming doesn’t always work well.
“If you have the TV on and you know, Special Victims Unit comes on, or some police show, that's not what people need to be taking in,” said Tammy Bickmore, an occupational therapist and assistant professor at the University of Southern Maine.
She and other experts say people who have dementia can’t follow complicated plots, and fast moving dialog can be confusing and frustrating.
Zinnia TV
Allyson Schrier discovered that first hand. Her husband was diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia when he was just 47. “As a family caregiver, I lived as many family caregivers do, in fear.”
Fear of when he would become agitated or upset and fear about her own well being as a caregiver with two young children. “Sometimes I just needed 20 minutes to start dinner,” she said.
As her husband’s condition worsened, she also grew increasingly frustrated trying to find things they could do together. So she started creating slow-moving videos for him on her iPad. “And we could talk about what we were seeing,” she said. "I could pause them and we could talk about them in more detail. There was music in the background, and I thought, 'Well yeah! How do you do that at scale?'”
It was an "aha!" moment that she decided to pursue.
It took several years to research, fundraise and develop, but Schrier and a cofounder launched Zinnia TV in 2022.
It’s a streaming service with hundreds of slow-paced, plot-free videos, meant to be enjoyed in the moment, alone or with someone else. There are no confusing characters to keep track of and no jarring commercials.
Instead, viewers can choose from eye-catching programs, like one called Hawaiian Breeze. It's 20 minutes of luscious footage of beaches, exotic birds, flowers and waterfalls, underscored with soft ukulele music. There's a 10-minute video called Let's Talk About Picnics, videos about animals, gardening, safaris, car repair and babies — lots of videos with babies.
“Just today I got a call from a lady who said, ‘Is there anything that you have that's woodworking?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we do actually. We have a video that just shows people building something. They’re using tools.’"
"And the idea is that we want people to be able to pause and reminisce and say, 'Wow, I remember that,'” Schrier said.
Memory Lane TV
Another streaming service designed for people living with dementia is Memory Lane TV, which also launched in 2022.
Nick Viti is an occupational therapist at The Cedars, a senior living community in Portland, Maine. He's also the life enrichment manager for the community's day program, which serves people with dementia or cognitive impairment.
Viti helped test early versions of Memory Lane TV and has continued to use it.
“The films are shot in Ultra High Definition," Viti said, "and it's very captivating visually.”
One video takes viewers soaring over a scenic hillside with ocean waves crashing in the distance. A vintage black and white clip shows the Andrews Sisters singing in step.
Viti says one of the most popular videos is of Maine's Fryeburg Fair, a large agricultural event that he says most of the people he works with have been to.
“We have residents that aren't able to engage easily in a lot of things. They are engaged by Memory Lane TV, as is frequently the staff who stop in and we'll watch for two or three minutes at a time," Viti said. "It's very calming.”
That can be helpful, he says, when someone is calling out for a loved one who's passed away or someone who's become upset, confused or aggressive late in the day — a common set of symptoms known as sundowning
The videos aren’t meant to be used all the time, Viti says. But he says they work well along with other activities like: music, physical movement, foods, crafts and games.
Alban Maino, Memory Lane TV’s CEO and founder, says it's more multi-sensory stimulation than entertainment.
“We’re all multi-sensory from the day we’re born. How we smell our coffee, listen to music or interact with the world. But people with dementia need even more stimulation than we do,” said Maino.
A filmmaker, he helped care for his grandmother a decade ago when she had Alzheimer's. He says he was shocked that he couldn't find anything appropriate for her to watch. That sparked the idea for Memory Lane TV, and he says it's taken several years to research and develop their programs.
Both Memory Lane TV and Zinnia TV have videos geared for different times of day. There are videos with misty sunrises, gently uplifting music and people stretching and drinking coffee for mornings.
More lively programs with couples dancing or people playing baseball might work well midday, says Viti, when you want to encourage activity.
“And then maybe after dinner, you're watching some of these, like, long shots of beautiful fall foliage, or even scenes that transition into night,” he added.
Those transitional videos can be helpful and gentle reminders for individuals who can no longer tell time.
The cost
For individual subscribers, Zinnia TV costs $9.99 per month or $69.99 for an annual subscription.
Memory Lane TV starts at $7.99 per month. For an additional fee, Memory Lane will provide aromatherapy equipment that can be used with certain videos. They can also create personalized content.
Besides providing videos for people who have dementia, both companies also provide programming for caregivers — supportive videos and tips.
Allyson Schrier points to Zinnia TV's daily activities channel that she says help encourage things like drinking water, eating lunch, brushing teeth and washing. They seem mundane, she says, but they can become fraught when someone has dementia.
“If we're going to shower to get ready for the day, I can just show the shower video and say, 'Look at these people. What are they doing?'” said Schrier. “'Wow, that water looks so warm and comfortable. Ooh, maybe we should shower. That might be a good idea.'”
Memory Lane TV recently launched a partnership with Alzheimer's Los Angeles to stream their multilingual and multicultural caregiver support videos.
Heather Cooper Ortner, president of Alzheimer's L.A., says there's still too much stigma around dementia. And different cultures, she says, view illness and caregiving differently. Ortner says their videos are available free on their website, but she hopes partnering with Memory Lane TV will help bring the information to a much wider audience.
“These products have a lot of potential good, but you can't just turn it on and think it's going to fix everything,” said Tammy Bickmore, from the University of Southern Maine.
Dementia affects people differently and what works for one person, she says, may not work with someone else. But, she says, caregivers need all the tools they can get.
Robert Santulli agrees. An honorary associate professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth, he's the author of The Alzheimer's Family, Helping Caregivers Cope.
"I think the videos are well done," he said. "They're engaging, but I didn't always love the music that went along with them." And he says for some people, that may be a deal breaker.
But he felt they could absolutely be a valuable tool for caregivers, both as a way to get a break and as an activity to do together.
"Couples who always used to do things together and now one had dementia and the other doesn't, that's really hard, because there are so many things they can't do anymore," Santulli said. "So it's very important to have an activity that you can do with the person that you love and you're caring for."
Officials with the Alzheimer’s Association of Vermont as well as the New Hampshire and Massachusetts chapters were unaware of Memory Lane TV and Zinnia TV.
But some Vermonters are tuning in. Barnard resident Randal Vaughn was caring for his mother when he heard about Zinnia TV. “It took me all of about 30 seconds to figure out it was worth investigating and signing up for.”
“I wish I’d heard about it sooner,” he said. His mother’s dementia was advanced, and he says the long-running videos were especially helpful at bedtime as they were calming and helped her fall asleep.
"The thing is, if she woke up, which was very common, an hour later, half hour later, two hours later, the programming was still playing with the calming music and imagery. That was really useful."
Even though his mother passed away last year, Vaughn admits, he still watches. “I don't have dementia, as far as I know,” said Vaughn with a laugh. “But I do watch from time to time. I watched it earlier this week because it is, in fact, very soothing."
And right now, the way the world is, he says, soothing is good.
