Week 4

This week I tried to establish an experimental control for each resident I plan to test. I started with Mildred, as she was the most eager of the residents to do any kind of activity. Mildred without music has a lack in multitasking, as she is unable to play cards correctly without forgetting the rules of the game and support conversation or even banter mid game. I also was able to spend a small amount of time with her using music, where I noticed she was able to understand what was being said to her, and respond emotionally through laughing, smiling, etc, but was unable to actually respond and play at the same time. Unfortunately, Mildred was moved to another facility by her family, so  I will be unable to do any further research on her, and will mainly have to draw from what  I already have.

I moved on to Tom after that, where  I sat in on a sing along session, and played cards with him, observing that the music almost distracted him, as he would try to sing along to what he knew, and lost track of what was going on with the game at hand. Tom without music is able to keep up with the pace of the game, and strategize on how to win as opposed to just going through the motions. He can run into problems with faster paced games that he wasn't used to playing (like checkers).

I then worked at finding one for Virginia. When she and I played cards she was fairly unable to make a strategy or remember the patterns of drawing and discarding, requiring a constant reminder of what she needed to do next. Through this interaction I discovered that she has a very heavy amount of loss when forming new memories, lacking pattern recognition. She also displays a lack of ability to form new memories, as the rules, although they were explained to her multiple times, were unable to stick to her.

I was not able to gather data for Jeanette and Inge, which will be the main focus of the coming week at the residency home. I will also be experimenting with the other residents I have already identified a control for, starting with music from their respective time periods or cultures growing up. I still have yet to determine what causes Virginia's amnesiac incidents, and will be working to find what the cause of them may be.