Computer aid helps dementia sufferers communicate again

An interactive computer programme is helping older people suffering from dementia to continue to communicate and interact with their family and carers.

Dr Arlene Astell of the School of Psychology at the University of St. Andrew's, who is joint co-ordinator of the project, revealed the programme's success on Thursday 8 July 2004, at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society's Psychology Specialists Working with Older People (PSIGE) at Durham University.

Dementia, which includes the impairment of short-term memory, can be a very serious problem for the older people who develop it and those around them, particularly as short-term memory plays a very important role in human communication. People with dementia can find it difficult to maintain the thread of a conversation and struggle when new topics are introduced.

But CIRCA - Computer Interactive Reminiscence and Conversation Aid - helps to overcome these problems by acting as a conversation prompt. It draws on research that has shown that reminiscing is a good way to start conversations with those people who have mild to moderate dementia.

The multi-media interactive touch screen system provides the user with photographs, video clips, songs and other familiar sounds and creates a livelier form of reminiscence than is possible with other methods, such as a paper scrapbooks. In this way the computer - which has been developed in collaboration by Dundee University, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and the University of St. Andrew's - becomes a kind of 'cognitive prosthesis'.

The three-year CIRCA project began in September 2001 and those who have already used the system have found it easy to use and an enjoyable prompt to conversation. People with dementia are able to use the touch screen to make choices about what they would like to see or hear and this has the effect of making them more equal partners in the interactions. So far the system has been tried out in daycare, residential and domestic settings in both one-to-one and group situations. All feedback has been positive and consistent benefits have been found, even with people with severe dementia, relative to other forms of reminiscence.

Ref: Pr622