Arthur Bear - Musical Teddy Bear

A  musical Teddy Bear for improving cognisance and engagement.

Comforting and engaging, ‘Arthur’, combines the profound benefits of targeted music with sensory and tactile feedback, with the engagement of something to be cherished and cared for.

Arthur is a combination of our experiences of the benefits of music and/or recorded messages for people living with cognisant difficulties such as dementia, learning disabilities and autism, combined with the widely accepted advantages offered by ‘doll therapy’. The care and interaction with a comforting soft toy and the music or voice lead to feelings of security, and enjoyment, whilst encouraging interaction.

Just squeeze his “paws button” the music will play – that’s all you have to do!

How does it work

Despite the enormous benefits of music and the security and comfort provided by Arthur, operating controls can be too much of a challenge for people with memory difficulties or issues of understanding. Arthur has been designed to be as simple as possible and his intended use is to be activated by friends family or carers, unburdening the user with this task.

Arthur only has one external control and that is to start and stop the music he has been preloaded with. The music has an automatic ‘shuffle’ mode which ensures that the playlist doesn’t always start from the same place. It is most important that the music loaded into Arthur has meaning to the user; this is easy to do and will produce by far the best results.

Benefits

Doll therapy: A large section of the community with cognizant challenges lack daily engagement. Some caregivers try to ease the burden of distress and anxiety by introducing dolls or soft toys to love and care for. The dolls can become an integral part of their life and caring for the doll can range from simple engagement to a major part of their day to day responsibilities. Doll or 'cuddle' therapy, may bring back happy memories of early parenthood and helps feeling useful and needed.

Music: Playing music to people with dementia or similar challenges from their formative years vastly improves their cognizance and lucidity - the effects are dramatic and are widely recognised. Arthur was developed with collaborative input from doll therapy partners.