When I was a kid we used to go over to my grandfather’s house to watch the Wizard of Oz the one time they aired it each year (the Sunday after Thanksgiving). My grandfather had the first color TV in the family and Wizard was one of the few movies shown in color on TVs in the 1960. In the generation of an LCD TV in every room, and iPad on every lap, and 50 iPhones playing movies on every flight, the kids of today definitely do not relate to the kind of experience it was once a year for 15 family members to sit in the living room with popcorn and my grandfather’s homemade root beer. I sort of recall (perhaps erroneously) that it was the first color movie my mother and my aunts had seen as kids and it seemed that they knew every line (and especially song). In those simple times, they had to have the actor who played the evil witch do coffee commercials so that kids could see that the witch was an actor, not real.

Those of my generation learned some lessons from the Wizard of Oz movie and Dorothy, Toto, the Tinman, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow. Using some of those less can help live well with dementia. Or any other time you are not in Kansas.

Think of the memories a mind map with a heavy visual component from an older person’s childhood (for example movies like the Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, ET; TV shows like Star Trek, the Brady Bunch, Lost in Space) might bring back through associations.

A mind model (AKA mind map). Click on the image to expand it.