Everyone in the Montessori care home has a name badge, even the residents. Why is that? Normal care homes don’t do that.
A prepared environment in a Montessori care community provides memory supports for people living with dementia. What people are unable to retain because of memory impairment needs to be put into the environment. We do this by providing signage, cue cards and task breakdown. These things are all part of a Montessori prepared environment and name badges are part of this. When we show courtesy and respect by encouraging the use of name badges, we all of a sudden have a level playing field and people living with dementia are able to call each other by name and this encourages social interactions. Names are an important part of our identity; they connect us with the people around us.
![Elderly women reading](https://montessori-ami.org/sites/default/files/images/questions/elderly-reading.jpg)