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Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 15:36:43 -0400
From: Donna Marie Kuczynski
Don't know if I am doing this right or not. I have enjoyed what I have read so far. Gail I had the pleasure of taking your workshop at the Nat. Conf.
I am a retired nurse and have doing storytelling for a number of years.I began group telling in the local nursing home 12 years ago.I went in and did an assessment after 6 weeks of 1 hour each week with low cognitive level Alzheimer patients.In working with the activities director we found that there was a noticeable change in the sociality of these individuals .We also found that some who were non verbal (after the 3rd week) would enter in a word at a time with the story that had been repeated
each week.I do have nursing homes that I do on a monthly basis and have found satisfaction in the response of those attending(not always) for the most part. This is not a project for any teller in need of ego stroking.
Healing............struck home when a Patient expired and her daughter told me it was a great help(i will not relate the entire story)to her and her sisters,to find that a storyteller had been telling a story the week her mother expired,because as she was dying the women asked for a story and when her daughter began"once upon a time" the women said "no! no !dear,in the beginning when all the animals could talk". The women had been non verbal for some time.The closure felt by the daughters was b
ecause(they told me) that each night when they kissed mother goodnight and left they were never sure if she really heard them say how much they loved her.If she heard the story,she heard them.theirs was the healing..........dmk
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