The selection of meaningful activities as a treatment for day-care in dementia

In a day care center for patients with dementia, we carried out a study on the activities suggested by the center with the aim at identifying the most suitable ones for developing an adaptive behavior and a psychosocial well-being. The research took place in the Alzheimer Day Care Center, in Florence on 14 patients suffering from moderate-severe dementia. Over a period of two years, we proposed ten different kinds of activities (movement, music, body involvement, light manual work, etc.) and by using an evaluation scale, we measured the level of involvement of every patient in every activity. Afterwards, we selected the most effective ones and proposed them as the principal activities over three consecutive months. The patients who took part in this study were evaluated before and after three months with the scale of Cohen-Mansfield for agitated behavior. In the same period we also observed a control group receiving only generic, non selected activities. The activities with body involvement and manual creativity were the most preferable to the experimental group. The participation in these selected activities produced a statistically significant increase of interest (p = 0.01) in the patients towards these activities over the study period and a reduction of the score in Cohen-Mansfield agitation inventory (CMAI) by the end of the study. Same results were not obtained in the control group.