A museum-led dementia awareness programme, House of Memories, is marking 10 years since its memory activity app launched at the House of Commons.

The free My House of Memories app, co-created with people living with dementia, was launched two years after the creation of the wider House of Memories programme, which is led by National Museums Liverpool. The aim of the app is to develop connections and conversations between people living with dementia and their families and carers, through digital collections of objects. Together, people can explore pictures of museum objects and everyday items – which range from a Singer sewing machine to a 10 shilling note – and discover things which resonate with them. Images are brought to life with sound, music and descriptions, which can help to spark memories of days gone by. Users can also save favourite objects to a digital memory tree, digital memory box or timeline, and add their own photographs to the ‘My Memories’ feature on the app. Over the last decade, objects on the app have been interacted with more than a million times.

Throughout the years, House of Memories has worked with a range of museums, organisations and communities around the world to create content for the app, to provide a choice of objects to resonate with as many people living with dementia as possible. Recent partnerships have included collaborating with Welsh Government and 14 museum partners across Wales to develop dual-language content for the app, and working with the Chelsea Pensioners at the Royal Hospital Chelsea to create a collection of hospital and British Army memories.

In order to support professional carers working with people living with dementia, as well as families and friends, House of Memories also provides online and in-person training where you can learn how to use the My House of Memories app and hear about other dementia activities and resources. The in-person training takes place in Liverpool every month, while online training – made up of 31 expert videos across four modules – can be completed at any time.

The House of Memories team also offer bespoke dementia awareness and app training to organisations which work with or support people living with dementia, from the likes of residential and nursing homes to housing associations and groups offering support services.

Sarah Wright, Project Coordinator at Gairloch Museum in northwest Scotland, runs a ‘Whatever the Weather’ Wednesday reminiscing group and recently worked with House of Memories to deliver training to encourage local people and carers to engage with the app, particularly the ‘Highland Memories’ section, which was developed with museums across the Highlands.

Sarah said: “Within minutes of getting started everyone was chatting about the images they were choosing and listening to the recordings on the app. It was great to see people of different ages sharing memories together.

“The training session was really well presented and there was an excellent sense of connection between the trainers and the people being trained. It was good to get carers together and to have the opportunity to talk more about dementia and what it really means to live with someone who is living with dementia.”

The My House of Memories app is available to download for free on iOS devices via the App Store and on Google Play for Android devices. Information about in-person, online and bespoke training is available on the House of Memories website.

Family and professional carers of people living with dementia who are local to Liverpool, where House of Memories is based, can also join free ‘memory walks’ and ‘When I was little’ events at Museum of Liverpool, which use museum displays and collections to encourage conversations about the past. The team also have a mobile museum, which visits local care homes and organisations, to provide immersive reminiscence experiences for people living with dementia.