[ExI] VR for dementia care

[William Flynn Wallace]

 are not really in the late stages of dementia so much as they are bored
out of their everlovin' minds.  If they don't have or do not use a
computer, what do they do?  Watch soap operas?  Daytime game shows?  Well
hell, no wonder their minds atrophy.  spike

Now I know very little about dementia, so do not get your ruffles up if I
get something wrong.  What's wrong with the Spike quote above?  It assumes
that their motivation is as far gone as their minds.  Why can't they get
stimulation for themselves?

I knew one man, our former chairman, who had a stroke.  I was not around
him much, but I learned that he spent a good part of the day watching soap
operas.  And in the dept. we wondered - such a brilliant man;  why was he
dipping so low on the entertainment pole?  A man who extolled the virtues
of Nova on TV.  Maybe his damage reduced his IQ in a sense and soap opera
was now at his level.

I have heard of other cases where an elderly person started to like pop
music, as opposed to his usual classical.  Another drop in IQ?  bill w

-------------------------------
I am not a Waltons trivia expert but he named the children accurately enough
for me to realize he had learned the names of the characters accurately and
recited them later, this after having been deep in what we thought was
end-stage AD. spike

Long term memories are the last to go.  Don't make any assumptions about
what that man could remember from yesterday or what he could learn.  bill w



On Tue, Nov 1, 2016 at 11:01 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
> >...From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On
> Behalf Of spike
> ...
>
>
> >... On Behalf Of BillK
> Subject: [ExI] VR for dementia care
>
> This is a marvellous use for virtual reality!
>
> <http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-virtual-reality-
> is-transforming-dem
> entia-care-in-australia/>
>
> How virtual reality is transforming dementia care in Australia...
> -----------
> BillK
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> Thanks BillK.  As you know, this is a topic which has been on my mind for
> some time.
> ...
> Go Australians!  We are cheering for ya, mates!
>
> spike  _______________________________________________
>
>
> From BillK's article:
>
> ... an elderly Italian gentleman cried when they removed the goggles from
> him. When asked why he was so emotional, he said that he had given up ever
> returning to Venice, and he had felt like he was there in a gondola...
>
> This comment reminded me of an experience that happened a quarter century
> ago but I remember it like it happened yesterday.  In college I worked at a
> nursing home, that wing back there (details needed?  Didn't think so) night
> shift.  Ten years later, my bride's grandfather was a patient in that
> nursing home and was in that wing back there.  In the early 80s, they had
> no
> TV (they thought there was no point in it (dammit)) but by the early 90s,
> some sane kindhearted soul had made some fundamental changes.  They had a
> big-screen TV (rare in those days, a big very expensive CRT) in a commons
> area and a number of seats and places for wheelchairs.  Someone had
> recorded
> a bunch of episodes of the Waltons, cut out all the commercials and placed
> them continuously end to end on a video tapes.  They played continuously
> round the clock (AD patients don't always sleep at night.)
>
> We visited, he commented "I had dinner today with the nicest family.  They
> have a sawmill and the oldest son is called John Boy and their daughters
> are
> Mary Ellen, Esther, Erin Elizabeth... etc.
>
> I am not a Waltons trivia expert but he named the children accurately
> enough
> for me to realize he had learned the names of the characters accurately and
> recited them later, this after having been deep in what we thought was
> end-stage AD.  That happened in 1992 but I can't get it out of my mind.
> His
> damaged brain was still able to experience and still able to remember.  I
> think had we known, we might have been able to keep him home with nothing
> more sophisticated than a VCR.
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
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>
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