Essential Awakenings® Smell & Memory Kit, 1st Edition. Made in the USA
Essential Awakenings® Smell and Memory Kit has been designed for families, caregivers and program directors to engage seniors in a brain-stimulating activity that encourages socialization, conversation, storytelling and the recall of memories through the sense of smell. The scent prompts can also be used for Smell Training with the enclosed Smell Training Guide (guide Included upon request)
Roll the first smell onto the pointed tip of the paper blotter strip.
Give your loved one or group audience the scented paper blotter strip.
Ask them to smell and try to describe what they smell (any adjective or descriptor that comes to the top of their mind). Example: Is it sweet, sour, fresh, clean? Is it a flower? A fruit?
Give them clues to help them guess (using clue cards as a tool, or verbalize your own).
If no descriptor comes to mind, reveal what the smell is, and see if you can open a discussion. In a group setting, it may take one or two tries to get everyone to open up.
Repeat with remaining scents.
For Storytelling: You can also choose to tell stories using the smell prompts as a sensory vehicle. For example: “At Christmas time, we went to the farm to select our Christmas tree (show pine), and then made some popcorn and threaded them on a string and threw it on the tree as an ornament. My mother always baked ham for Christmas dinner and always put a rounds of pineapples with a cute little cherry in the middle....”
For Smell Training: Follow specific instructions developed by Dr. Rachel Herz.