For people with dementia, smell could be the key to peace

Within a plastic cube scattered with perforated holes lies a scent-infused cloth. From it comes a mist capable of invoking a person’s deepest and often most joyful memories.

Since the Seventies, the scent manufacturing company AromaPrime has supplied care homes with these “aroma cubes”, tools used in the art of smell therapy. This is a program whereby scents are smelt and then discussed, with the aim to spark conversation and trigger feelings and experiences from the past. And for those with dementia, scent therapy could also be a valuable tool for sustained comfort and feelings of security and warmth.

Liam Findlay has been working as a themed scent consultant since 2018. It’s his job to capture desired scents as accurately as possible, even if – on paper – they’re slightly unusual. “I once had a resident desperate to remember what it was like to be a fisherman,” he remembers with a smile. Luckily, Findlay also provides scents for horror-themed attractions and thought a pungent, fishy odour he already had at his disposal could do the trick. “Someone finding joy in smelling a box that most would gag at made me laugh,” he says, “but it was exactly what he was looking for. It transported him straight inside a fish market.”

Smells, according to the dementia expert Dr Kamar Ameen-Ali, can greatly affect how our minds work. “Episodic memories are memories of past events in our lives, like the day you got married or graduated,” she tells me. “They rely heavily on contextual cues, which can include certain sounds or smells associated with the time particular memories are encoded. This means that when these contextual cues are re-encountered, they can trigger recollection.”

For people with dementia, the ability to form new episode memories is increasingly tricky, which is why the invoking of memories via scents is often so important. “Encountering certain smells can help people living with dementia remember something,” explains Dr Ameen-Ali, “in the same way it does with people who don’t have dementia. However, this is likely to only be helpful for existing episodic memories rather than the formation of new ones, as this function is unfortunately impaired in dementia.”

Loveday, a care home in London’s Kensington, hosts daily sessions of smell therapy with the residents in their care, in a programme developed with the University of West London’s Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory. Joshua Allen, a horticulturist, also hosts a weekly gardening club at Loveday, in which items such as fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers help residents reminisce or feel comfort in a form of natural smell therapy.

Aroma cubes mean we have more flexibility in terms of what we can recreate. Unlike with organic materials, we can try to recreate very specific things – like the conditions on a ship in the Seventies, for example

Liam Findlay

“Sometimes people don’t want to come out of their room,” he says, “but as soon as they do and they smell familiar smells of the garden, it makes them want to stay.” Allen begins each session by pouring cups of fresh mint tea for the residents, to get their senses flowing, before beginning the rest of his tasks. By the session’s end, he and the residents have harvested the vegetables growing in the care home’s garden in order to make lunch. “My sessions are incredibly smell-and-taste heavy, and as tactile as possible,” he explains. “Everything I plant is non-toxic so they’re safe if ingested, and I make sure there are as many smells as possible in the pots and flowerbeds. I even make sure that the plants feel nice to touch.”

The scent initiative at Loveday was started by Daisy Slavkova, the home’s general manager. She’s so enthusiastic about smell therapy that the home even has its own “perfume butler” system, in which staff visit each resident carrying a glossy, mirrored tray holding a selection of pre-chosen scents. Moods are instantly elevated. “It’s about tapping into the connection between fragrance and memory,” Slavkova says. “We also take members shopping to select new perfumes for the tray.”

Findlay says that he’s been commissioned to create scents that invoke coal fire, baked bread, pear drops and even toffee, and that tobacco is one of the most popular requested scents for care homes. That, though, may drop off as successive generations age. “It’s going to be interesting to see what smells resonate with younger generations in 50 years time,” he adds. For young people currently addicted to vaping, it’s not out of the question that they’ll be requesting watermelon or grape scents once they hit their elderly years.

The brain’s ability to link smells with memories is deeply rooted in science. Dr Ameen-Ali explains that our brain’s “olfactory bulb” translates a scent as a kind of information, which is then passed on to other parts of our brains. “It goes to the amygdala, which has a role in processing emotions, and then the hippocampus, which is responsible for processing memory,” she says. “As there is a close connection between the structures in our brain for processing smells, emotions and memories, it’s unsurprising that smells can retrieve memories [later on] – particularly if they were strong emotional experiences.”

Scents are also being increasingly used in the funeral sector, too, with smells a common part of memory boxes put together in tribute to those who’ve recently died, and even deployed during the actual funeral itself. “It’s a very personal experience for a family to visit a chapel within a funeral setting,” explains funeral director Chantal Carr. “So it’s often nice to include subtle things like smells to make the visit as peaceful and comforting as we can.”

When working with bereaved families, she and her team like to ask for as much information as possible on the person who’s recently passed: their hobbies, their jobs, their passions. Jam tarts and garden sheds are just two of the scents that she’s infused into memory boxes. And when she does community work, she likes to combine scents with vintage objects to trigger memories. She recalls residents with dementia being given dolls alongside an aroma cube filled with the scent of baby powder, in order to restore the memory of having had a newborn child.

Although most would assume nothing can beat the fresh smell of the garden or fresh herb trimmings, Findlay notes that manufactured smells can have extra benefits. “Aroma cubes mean we have more flexibility in terms of what we can recreate,” he says. “Unlike with organic materials, we can try to recreate very specific things – like the conditions on a ship in the Seventies, for example. The oils are also so potent that they last a long time and people can keep going back to them.”

For Findlay, his work is also increasingly personal: his grandmother is a care home resident and has dementia, too. “Memories are the bricks that make up our lives,” he says. “Even if scent only brings a fleeting comfort, it’s an incomparable, magical tool.”