Poetry used to rekindle memories in patients with dementia

The teenager's voice breaks the silence that hangs over the dozing, grey-haired figures. "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you," she recites - "you'll be a man, my son", finishes one of the pensioners, with a burst of recognition.

Alzheimer's has stolen most of Margaret's memories, but she can still remember the line from Rudyard Kipling's famous poem that she learnt years ago, a rare moment of clarity in the fog of the cruel disease.

This retirement home in central England is one of many institutions and hospitals across the country turning to poetry to provide some respite from the symptoms of dementia, such as the loss of memory, communication and basic skills.

While it provides no cure, the rhythm and pace of well-known verse can act as a trigger for memories and speech, according to Jill Fraser, whose charity "Kissing it Better" organises reading sessions for the elderly.

If patients "hear one word that they can remember from poetry, it brightens their day up", said Elaine Gibbs, who runs the Hylands House retirement home in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was fittingly, the home of William Shakespeare.

Miriam Cowley, elegant in a flowered dress and grey hair tied up into a bun, listens attentively as a teenager reads her "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth.

"I did know the poem but I've forgotten it. I learnt it when I was a kid at school, a long time ago," said the retired teacher, who suffers from short-term memory loss.

"It brings back good memories. I will have some good dreams after that, dreams of daffodils, of trees."