Can Colouring Books Help Someone with Dementia?

There's a moment a lot of families describe, usually somewhere in the early or middle stages of dementia, where the person they love goes quiet in a way that feels different from tiredness. They're present but somewhere else. Getting through to them with conversation feels harder than it used to.

And then something familiar turns up - a smell, a piece of music, a photograph of somewhere they know - and they come back a bit. Not always. Not completely. But sometimes enough that the person sitting with them gets a glimpse of who's still in there.

That's the bit that stays with people. That's what families are looking for more of.

Colouring is one of the things that can do it, particularly when what's being coloured means something.

Why familiar places matter more than patterns

Most of the conversation around colouring and dementia focuses on the activity itself - the gentle repetitive motion, the focus it requires, the sense of completion when a page is done. And those things are real. Occupational therapists have used colouring and art activities with dementia patients for years because they engage parts of the brain that remain more intact than the memory centres that deteriorate earliest.

But there's a difference between colouring a mandala and colouring the high street your mum walked down every Saturday morning for forty years.

The second one isn't just an activity. It's a prompt. It gives the brain somewhere specific to go - a route, a feeling, a memory attached to a place. The building on the page connects to the time she stood outside it waiting for someone, or the smell of the baker's next door, or a conversation she had there once. You can't engineer those connections deliberately. But you can create the conditions for them to surface.

That's what makes illustrated books of real British towns different from anything else in this space. Generic patterns are pleasant. Somewhere real, somewhere familiar, is something else entirely.

What the research suggests

The evidence base for art and colouring specifically in dementia care is still building, but what exists is broadly positive. Studies looking at art therapy in dementia settings consistently show benefits around mood, engagement and reduced agitation. The act of colouring - choosing colours, staying within lines, finishing a section - gives a sense of structure and agency that can be hard to find in other activities as dementia progresses.

There's also something worth noting about procedural memory - the kind that holds onto how to do things rather than what happened. People with significant memory loss often retain procedural skills much longer than episodic ones. Picking up a pencil and colouring is a deeply familiar physical action for many people, and that familiarity itself can be settling in a way that's hard to put into words.

The practical side

A few things are worth keeping in mind when choosing a colouring book for someone with dementia.

Line detail matters. Very intricate, dense illustrations can feel overwhelming, particularly in later stages. Look for something with clear, confident lines and a reasonable amount of white space - enough detail to be satisfying, not so much that it becomes hard to navigate.

Wire binding is genuinely useful here. A book that lies completely flat means the person doesn't have to use one hand to hold the page down, which keeps the focus on the colouring itself. It sounds like a small thing until you're sitting with someone who finds managing multiple tasks at once increasingly difficult.

Single-sided pages matter too. Bleed-through from markers or heavy pencil strokes onto the next illustration is frustrating in any context. It's more so here.

And if you can, try to find something connected to somewhere that means something to them. It might be the town they grew up in, the city they lived in for most of their adult life, a coastline they visited every summer. It doesn't have to be an exact street or building they remember - proximity to somewhere familiar is often enough to start a conversation, or trigger something.

Starting the conversation

Sitting down to colour together, rather than just handing someone a book, tends to work better. It removes any performance anxiety about doing it "right" and makes it a shared activity rather than something to fill time. You don't need to talk much. Sometimes the colouring does the talking.

If a place on the page prompts a memory - something they recognise, somewhere they've been - follow it. Don't correct details. Don't worry if the story shifts or changes. The point isn't accuracy. The point is that something connected.

Britain In Lines makes premium adult colouring books featuring hand-drawn illustrations of real UK towns, landmarks and landscapes. If you're looking for a book connected to somewhere that means something to someone you love, you can browse the full collection at britaininlines.co.uk.