ARTICLE - SERENTIY BABIES

Original post can be found HERE.

Serenity Babies

Posted: 20 Apr, 2013

Think about the feeling of holding a sleeping baby and then imagine being able to give that sense of comfort to others. That's exactly what a Minnesota family that specializes in making babies does.

The Lindblooms came a long way to be here -- and the job they do is not easy.
"A serenity baby is a baby that can find the situation that you are in and you need at the time to bring peace into your life," Cindy Lindbloom explained.
Peace comes from calm cuddling of one of the babies born at the Loving Hearts Nursery in St. Joseph, and something magical happens each time one of those babes is brought out into the world.
They are so convincing that they can fool a genuine model -- and his mother. They're so surprisingly realistic that few realize they are actually lifelike dolls.
In fact, the serenity babies are so like the real thing, it's hard to resist the urge to talk to them.
"Hi sweetheart," said Florence, who lives at the Johanna Shores Senior Community in Arden Hills. "Do you see me?"
While Florence knows she is not holding a real baby, that doesn't matter.
"Let's see if you can do a little patty cake," she coos at the babe.
The therapists at the elderly care facility, which bought five serenity babies for the residents to share, say it only takes an instant for the babe to bring out joy.
"The instant you put it in their arms, they are cooing and awing," Nancy said. "It reaches down in them somewhere and it pulls out that feeling of joy."
But that joy gestates slowly. Cindy and Darryl Lindbloom build the dolls in what they call a nursery, not a studio -- even though what they create is art.
"Some people call it a craft," Darryl Lindbloom said. "I think when you take it to this level, it's art."
The man who is more inclined toward engines paints with precision that tickles just to watch as he creates what he calls 3-D interactive art. He starts with the skin tone. After drying in the oven, the detail will come on another day.
Little veins in the skin get blended as layers go over it, and it's so precise that your eyes will swear the doll is a real baby until you touch it.
Even then, the weighted limbs make the dolls move in a lifelike way when they're scooped up. The Lindblooms use fine glass beads inside nylons to create the effect, and each one is unique.
"No two of them are alike," Darryl Lindbloom explained. "It gives each one their own little personality."
Little personalities are something the Lindblooms know a lot about. They had three of their own children and fostered many others. In the 80s, the couple cared for infants of teen mothers until the babes were ready to go to permanent homes.
"You cry when they leave, but you know they are going to a great place," Cindy Lindbloom said. "Just seeing the happiness on the adoption people's faces, that made me happy."
It's a bit like that with the serenity babies too. For some at the Johanna Shores Senior Community, memories don't come so easily any more -- but something about the babies in the memory care unit that revives something special.
"There is a change and they start reminiscing about their babies, about when they were babies, when their siblings were babies," Nancy explained.
Though Roger can't recall whether he combed his hair in the morning, seeing the serenity baby helps him hear sounds from long ago.
"The baby songs my wife used to sing to my five kids come back to my memory," he said. "She made it up, I'm sure."
The therapeutic potential is clearly there.
"For women, it raises our oxytocin, and the oxytocin level is known as the 'happy hormone' or the 'comforting hormone,'" Cindy Lindbloom said.
One woman who had lost a baby was drawn to the dolls, along with a young man.
"The guy got tears in his eyes. He said it's just so touching," Cindy Lindbloom recalled. "He goes, 'Yeah, we can't have any more children.'"
While some see the dolls as collectibles, the Lindblooms really love to see their work delivered to the arms of those who need the feeling only holding a baby can bring.
"It's hard to describe," Darryl Lindbloom said. "I think it's something inside us, just the need to nurture something."
The Lindblooms know that feeling is a very real thing -- even if the baby is not.

ARTICLE - BENNINGTON HEALTH & REHAB ADDS DOLL THERAPY FOR ALZEIMERS

Bennington Health and Rehab adds doll therapy for Alzheimer's
Saturday August 25, 2012

ZEKE WRIGHT
Staff Writer
 
BENNINGTON -- On Friday, staff and residents at Bennington Health and Rehabilitation Center were introduced to a pair of life-like dolls that will serve as an addition to programming at the center for patients with dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
Studies have shown that "doll therapy" can have a calming, positive effect on the mood and behavior of individuals with a degenerative brain disease like Alzheimer's, improving their quality of life and reducing dependency on medication.
The two sisters producing the dolls, Kathi George, of Williamstown, Mass., and Julie Crosier, of North Bennington, said that what started as a doll-making hobby turned into a business after they began researching the therapeutic value of the dolls. The pair sold one doll and donated the second Friday, and said they had previously delivered a pair to The Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation at Hoosick Falls, N.Y.
The expressions of three residents at the facility lit up and their spirits immediately lifted when the dolls were brought in Friday. "It brings back a lot of good memories," said George. The therapy can be beneficial at all stages of dementia but works best when introduced in the early to middle stages.
Activities Director Marjorie LaFountain said the dolls would be incorporated into new activity programs for those in long-term dementia care. She said the therapy allowed patients to "have something that needs to be took care of, instead of (themselves) needing to be taken care of."

ARTICLE - MAKING DOLLS & HATS IS THERAPY FOR SOME DECALB CO (GEORGIA) SENIORS WITH VIDEO

Making dolls, hats is therapy for some DeKalb Co. seniors
Posted: Aug 01, 2012 

 By MYFOXATLANTA STAFF

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - There's a group of ladies in DeKalb County who are keeping their bodies and minds sharp, and they're looking fabulous doing it. Fashion design is usually thought of as a young person's game, but the ladies at the Lou Walker Senior Center are breaking all the rules by dressing dolls, and making some beautiful bonnets.
The senior ladies at the center know how to have a good time. They say they get together a couple of times a week because they need to -- they make hats and dolls with their hands.

"It's therapy for me because you're doing something with your hands. It actually helps my arthritis, I think," said Beverly Rich.

For most of them, it's the first time they have taken up the hobby. Versie Ward says as a kid she never had a doll. She says she took Coca-Cola bottles and pretended they were dolls. Thanks to Ward's instructor at the senior center, her dolls are much more life-like.

"Once I make them, I look at them and a name comes to me. Ok, you look like Cynthia. And I talk to them," said Ward.

The ladies don't stop at making dolls. Once their dolls have all they need to look their best, they've learned to outfit themselves. Instructor Ora Dabbey says those that come to her class will leave with a hat. The ladies say the hats they make help them explore their creative side.

"It's therapy for me. Every hat I make, I say well I'm not going to make another one. Then I get excited about the next one. What can I put on it, how can I shape it," said one lady.

The ladies say the hobbies keep their hands busy and their minds sharp, but most importantly it reminds them that one is never too old to dream.
The ladies have gotten so good at doll and hat making that some of them are now selling some of their creations. 

ARTICLE - DOLLS SOOTH DEMENTIA SUFFERERS

Dolls soothe dementia sufferers

By Sarah Doktor, Delhi News-Record

Tuesday, June 5, 2012 

DELHI - A controversial therapy has met great success at the Delhi Long Term Care Centre.
Doll therapy refers to the use of life-like dolls in the lives of dementia and Alzheimer patients. The style of therapy has been around for decades but is sometimes criticized for demeaning or belittling elderly adults.
Two dolls were introduced into Delhi Long Term Care Centre three months ago on the advice of Kathie Savage, psychogeriatric Resource Consultant with the Alzheimer Society of Haldimand Norfolk.
Dementia patients often act on instinct instead of reason, which can sometimes lead to destructive behaviour. When dolls are introduced they can significantly improve the behaviour of the residents.
“It can be soothing,” said Savage. “It gives them something to nurture.”
Most patients in the later stages of dementia believe the doll is a real baby and become dedicated to taking care of the baby.
There are six residents, including one man, that share the dolls at the Delhi Long Term Care Centre. They take turns caring for the dolls and share responsibility for them.
“They’re like little mother hens,” said Denise Boutin, director of programs at the Delhi Long Term Care Centre.
The centre is currently looking into purchasing three or four additional dolls to be used as therapy.
Pam Elson, restorative care aid at the Delhi centre, noted it has increased eye contact and communication between residents who were struggling before the introduction of the dolls.
“It’s more of an in-the-moment therapy,” said Elson, explaining the dolls help with issues in the present such as behavior, instead of trying to repair the patient’s brains to a pre-dementia stage.
“It has decreased behaviour (that would put the patient at risk for an injury),” said Elson. “There is more social interaction.”
One resident was being monitored for depression before but since the doll therapy has been introduced her level of depression has greatly decreased.
“She’s now communicating. She’s more compliant,” said Sarah Cope, restorative coordinator at the centre. When the baby has to go to bed, so will the resident. The same can be said of other activities.
While the sight of an elderly adult nurturing a doll may be met with surprise at first, the dolls are bridging the gap between families and those suffering from dementia.
“Families are really on board,” said Elson. “They use the baby as a way to communicate.”
In one case, when a daughter would come to visit she would just sit in the room with the mother, but after the doll was introduced they would spend their time singing to the baby and caring for it.
While the therapy has worked so far in Delhi, Savage notes it will not work for all patients.
“You really don’t know until the doll is present,” said Savage.

ARTICLE = LIFE-LIKE DOLLS USED FOR THERAPY RAISES CONCERNS

Life-like dolls used for therapy raises concerns 

 

 Published on Feb 12, 2012

 

 

By Judith Tan

They look like real babies, feel like real babies and, with eyes closed, sleep like real babies.
'They are so amazingly life- like,' exclaimed Mrs Lilly Tan, a housewife and mother of three boys. She was at Great World City mall when she came across these dolls.
Yes, dolls. They first emerged in the 1990s in the US, where hobbyists wanting more realistic, human-like dolls modified the store-bought vinyl variants.

 First sold over the Internet, they are now available in stores. Called baby dolls or reborn dolls, they recently became available in Singapore - at Motherswork, a one-stop shop for mothers and children.

REBORN DOLL THERAPY FOR DEMENTIA
In the medical world, the use of reborn doll therapy has not been scientifically established.
There have been a few accounts and experiences of when the dolls produced positive effects in dementia and Alzheimer's patients.
For instance, a home care service in Derbyshire, Britain, reported, in the early part of 2008, the effects of reborn dolls on their patients with Alzheimer's disease.
It has largely reduced the number of patients who take psychotropic drugs - from 92 per cent to 28 per cent.
Such dolls apparently help reduce withdrawal issues and can help overcome communication problems between the patient and the carer.
It also appears that the therapy is most helpful among female dementia patients. They are found to respond more positively with the reborn dolls as the dolls help them remember the times when they were mothers.
The therapy was discussed at a British Psychological Society Conference in 2010 as a prospect for improving the mental health of Alzheimer's and dementia patients in long-term care facilities.
Neurologist Nagaendran Kandiah told The Sunday Times that doll therapy would be a form of reminiscence therapy.
'Though reminiscence therapy as a whole lacks evidence for effectiveness in dementia, it is believed to help reduce anxiety and other challenging behaviours,' he said.
He added that it may be beneficial, along with other behavioural modifications, in patients with advanced dementia.
Judith Tan