how videos are helping dementia patients at metro vancouver care homes remember daily routines
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seniors watch tv at rosewood manor in richmond, bc, july 22, 2025.
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at rosewood manor, a long-term care home in richmond, 93-year-old marjory priebe is watching a video with soothing music and images of beaches, tropical plants and hula dancers that are projected onto a large wall.
“she had memories of hawaii when they showed (the scenes) from hawaii,” said priebe’s daughter carla macdonald, who was there with her brother to visit.
priebe moved into rosewood about a year and a half ago, just as vancouver coastal health researchers were starting a project that uses videos with carefully chosen images to engage people with dementia and give them visual nudges to complete daily tasks.
resident marjorie priebe with her adult children brian priebe and sister carla macdonald at rosewood manor in richmond.
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in particular, staff in long-term care homes like rosewood can have trouble getting residents with dementia to remember to drink water, especially in the summer heat.
by providing videos that tap residents’ interests, caregivers can get them used to watching and then incorporate clips, or whole videos, of day-to-day activities that are being encouraged.
student researchers, families and patients have been working together to tweak content for these videos so they are meaningful, and to show them in different, immersive ways including wall-sized images and virtual reality headsets.
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one video features water gushing out of a tap, a close-up of a person gulping from a glass of water, and a small dog licking water from a cup. another shows a baby drinking from a bottle and later birds and elephants quenching their thirst.
macdonald has been observing her mom watching the videos.
“she liked to watch quite a bit and (the staff) bring her down to watch. they help with modelling because sometimes the words are harder to follow. so if you see a visual of what you are supposed to do, that helps. there was the modelling of drinking water and then the residents will take a drink, which is a good idea in the hot weather.”
there are more than 60 types of dementia, which is an umbrella term, said lillian hung, a clinical nurse specialist at vancouver coastal health and an expert in how environments affect the care of people with dementia.
hung, who runs vch’s dementia education program, said a resident with vascular dementia, which is caused by a series of strokes, helped with the videos and told her that people with dementia are often misunderstood.
“when you tell them, ‘eat up your food’ or ‘drink your water’ and people are not doing it, it’s easy to think they’re just trying to give the staff a hard time. the truth is that the person may not understand what those words mean, but they can mirror what they see.”
lillian hung, clinical nurse specialist vch, with barbara mchale as seniors watch tv at rosewood manor.
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other long-term care facilities such as windermere in richmond, villa cathay in vancouver, inglewood care centre in west vancouver, and the dementia care unit and old adult programs at vancouver general hospital are now also using these videos to help with other common daily routine actions such as washing hands and eating breakfast.
hung said it has been important to work with care home staff, residents and families and make adjustments to the videos.
some of it is just pacing.
“slow it down, but not make it too, too slow. some have narratives and it was to try and make them more adult-like, so it’s not condescending and not too slow because people don’t like to be treated like kids,” said hung.
they also realized residents wanted to “be outside, to see landmarks like granville island in vancouver. they want those kinds of videos,” said hung.
seniors watch tv at rosewood manor
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some videos tap interests, such as one in antique cars, to engage residents. families have said residents want to see images from shopping at walmart or at t&t supermarket. there are videos in cantonese and german. one incorporates images of indigenous art.
“a lot of chinese residents crave for dim sum, so my student went to film people having dim sum. they were so excited to see the ‘ha gau’ and ‘siu mai’ (shrimp and pork dumplings) and food they are familiar with,” said hung.
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“we listen to residents and modify the videos to meet their needs,” said hung. “if you don’t have the video that they can relate to, then they won’t watch it.”
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