The paper is going to focus on Alzheimer’s and dementia and just how Family Alliance makes use of ‘stimulate the mind’ activities as an intervention process for people suffering from these conditions. Alzheimer’s is a condition that is very chronic and it is very neurodegenerative at the same time. Family Alliance takes part in engaging the patients in “Stimulate your mind” activities to try and curb the effects of dementia on patients. It ensures that there are several games that the clients can have access to for purposes of helping them increase their cognitive functioning. Thus, the activities are core tools for use in cognitive therapy as a way of helping these individuals slow down the process of memory loss and the deterioration of the brain.
Some of the activities that Family Alliance makes use of include fun dementia activities, memory exercises that are beneficial to their memory, brain exercises and also great mind stimulating exercises. Furthermore, it makes sure that patients have a routine of engaging in these activities for them to have a long lasting effect on the patients while improving their concentration and focus. Nevertheless, it will also ensure that they improve their problem-solving skills and also hand-eye coordination. However, it is crucial that Family Alliance differentiates the activities in some days so that in the case a patient does not want to engage in that activity they can always have the ability to pick another mind stimulating activity.
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The central part of this paper is the activity analysis on one of the patients that was playing the game Memory. It would either involve grading up or grading down the activities. First, we attempted to grade up the game in that we recognize one can play with the 6 cards again but once they match the cards they have to answer a question. The question could be about something they talked about during the current events session. For instance, what is the temperature for that day? Or it could be a question about their past or something related to the cards the turned over. It just needs to make them think. Furthermore, it would involve increasing the difficulty of the game by adding the rule that the pairs must not only match in rank, but must also match in color. I would do this with half the cards at first then increase the level of difficulty.
However, it would also be imperative to try grading down the game. After analyzing the patient go about her activity, it could be noted that she would easily benefit from grading the activity down. Grading the activity down involved two phases. One, instead of playing with all the cards in the game, Family Alliance could make it easier by using 6 cards. Place the 6 matching cards face down and let the client try to match those cards. Two, if the client is seen to be having a hard time matching the cards, then half the cards could be placed face up and half the cards face down to try to make it easier to match all six cards.
Afterward, it was necessary to speak to the patient, Christina, about the activity analysis of the memory game. The overall feeling after the analysis was that she would greatly benefit from grading the activity down because the patient seemed to get slightly aggravated when the activity was graded up, making it harder for her since she could not match the cards. Furthermore, another observation was that it was much easier to start the activity with less cards and in case it did not work, then half the cards could just be flipped over, making it a lot easier to march the cards. Nonetheless, the client suggested that once Christina matched all the cards, then more cards could be added and only flipping half. The idea was to maintain the ease in completing the game but using more cards.
Following the proceedings keenly, the cards game was then modified with the person the test was conducted on. This time, just six cards that were face down were used and Christina was instructed to try and find the matching cards. Although it took her roughly ten minutes, she was able to match all of the six cards. Consequently, it was imperative to conduct a second test and to challenge her a little more by using ten cards. Furthermore, even though it took her about seventeen minutes to complete, she was still able to do it. The observation was that she was very happy with herself after matching all the ten cards.
In conclusion, the whole activity proved very efficient on Christina when the game was graded down and making it easier for her to complete the game. The experience had a positive effect on her because it made her gain the ability to accomplish the task, thus making her very happy with herself. Furthermore, the positive reinforcement she experienced increased her level of enjoyment from the people preset in the room during the analysis.
