Remembering together – an app connects

BayernHistoryApp promotes a shared exchange with older people

New digital paths for relatives and carers: An innovative extension of the BayernHistoryApp helps those affected to activate memories and promotes conversations and exchanges with relatives and caregivers of people with and without dementia.

The Landsberg am Lech District Office is committed to the campaign “Dementia and us” 2024-2025 for a dementia-friendly society in order to increase dementia awareness in the district.

The campaign comprises three measures: creating a dementia-sensitive living environment, using digital options and raising public awareness. Pajam Rais Parsi, head of the coordination office for the overall senior citizens’ policy concept, is developing the digital measure together with the association dieKunstBauStelle under the direction of Wolfgang Hauck and the association Füreinander e. V. in Utting with gerontopsychiatric specialist Andrea Birner. The digital platform BayernHistory is being used and expanded to include a special implementation of memory images and media.

Under the motto “Remember pictures, talk to seniors”, the extended app is designed to support relatives and carers of people with dementia in promoting and preserving their memory. With the help of historical photos, tours of familiar places such as schools, churches or village squares and sound recordings – for example of church bells or eyewitness accounts in the local dialect – an interactive approach to one’s own biography is created. The app is supplemented by foreign-language versions for caregivers from abroad to ensure that it can be used by everyone involved.

Especially in old age, when many tasks and distractions fall away, a look back into the past can strengthen us through positive memories and build a bridge to our soul. This is biography work. It takes on a special significance when memory is failing and dementia begins to set in. Looking back at encounters and experiences from the past can really enrich relationships with loved ones and create a positive atmosphere in which even difficult situations can be overcome more easily together. – Andrea Birner

The aim is to encourage older people to talk and exchange ideas with their relatives and carers. Images and media are intended to help activate memories and experiences. The expansion of the app is being launched as a pilot project in selected locations in the district of Landsberg am Lech and is intended to establish itself as a new, permanent service.

This project is supported by the Bavarian Dementia Fund and the Sparkassenstiftung Landsberg-Diessen.

Implementing agency

Landsberg am Lech district

Cooperation partner