Download Dementia and memory loss with the elderly

Dementia and memory loss
with the elderly
Ellie Clarke
Introduction
There will be 1 million people with dementia in the UK by 2025.
The topic of memory loss with the elderly has become a major
concern for some of the modern day generation.
Research Aims

find out ways in which the elderly can use to music to bring back
important memories within their lifetime, which may have been
lost due to dementia or other illnesses affecting the brain and
memory loss.

Discover existing ways in which care homes are helping people
with dementia bring back the memories already lost.

Products already out there to help with the memory returning.
Secondary research – non medical
The medical solution to this problem has not yet been discovered but there are many other ways in which
the condition can be slowed down and made less painful.
1.
Social Interaction.
2.
Music.
3.
Video Playing.
4.
Activities.
5.
Recreating situations to simulate memories.
6.
Story Telling.
Most people with dementia remember the distant past more clearly than recent events. This is because
memories tend to decline in reverse order to when they were experienced. People will often have difficulty
remembering what happened a few minutes or hours ago, but can recall, in detail, life when they were
much younger. However, as the condition progresses, even these long-term memories will eventually
decline.
Secondary research – brain workings in
relation to music
Positive aspects of music on the brain:

Ambient noise can improve
creativity.

Classical music can improve visual
attention.

One-sided phone calls are more
distracting than normal
conversations.

Music training can significantly
improve our motor and reasoning
skills.
Research method: Quantitative.
Secondary research - statistics
1.
There will be 1 million people with dementia in the UK by 2025.
2.
Two thirds of people with dementia are women.
3.
One in Six people aged 80 and over have dementia.
4.
Delaying the onset of dementia by 5 years would reduce deaths directly
attributable to dementia by 30,000 a year.
5.
The financial cost of dementia to the UK is £26 billion per annum.
6.
80% of people living in care homes have a form of dementia or severe memory
problems.
Research method: Quantitative.
Products
Literature review
1.
The man who mistook his wife for a hat. By Oliver Sacks.
2.
Designing mental health units for older people. By Mary Marshall.
3.
At your fingertips – dementia Alzheimer’s and other dementias second addition. By Harry Cayton, Dr Nori
Graham and Dr James Warner.
Primary Research
•
Phone Call to a Care Home within Essex that
looks after multiple dementia Patients.
•
Email sent to the Alzheimer’s Research
society.
•
Spoke to elderly relatives on the phone.
•
From the action taken a clearer understanding
of the condition itself has been presented.
•
Research methods: Qualitative.
Next steps
1.
Over Easter I shall be visiting a care home within Essex that houses dementia
patients.
- I plan to find out about multiple ways that the patients are treated within
care home.
the
- Ways in which the patients are specifically treated in regards to their
condition.
- Ask opinions on using music as a tool to support the patients and their
progression with regaining memory.
2.
Giving out a questionnaire to the elderly within the home to see responses to the
questions although remaining anonymous.
3.
Creation of my own design brief which will begin to create a system to help the
elderly with regaining memory loss through the power of music.