Final Weeks

I've been terrible about getting these last few out so I'm going to just summarize my time over hte last few weeks. After I decided upon which C&D residents I was going to study, I moved into attempting to replicate the research tests I performed on the three other residents to the best of my ability. There was a definitive difference in the reaction times of the C&D residents as opposed to the A&B residents, which is to be expected, as the gap in progression of dementia between the two halves of the residency home is noticeable. I spent some time getting to know Mo and Genevieve before running tests on them, as I did with the other residents, however their dementia had progressed to a point where memory of their past or childhood was almost nonexistent.

What I managed to get a handle on from the activities representative who works with them was that Genevieve grew up on a farm in Nebraska, and Mo grew up and lived in New Orleans. I tested the two of them using the game crazy eights. I observed that without music, Genevieve had some difficulty with handling multiple patterns at once, for instance, the fact that a card of the same suit or same number/face could be played. Usually she would either be unaware of one of the two options, or would question my move that satisfied one of those two conditions. Mo was much further limited than Genevieve, she mainly struggled with figuring out what her cards were, and would get lost in finding out that information and forget where she was. It was because of that drastic difference that led me to ask about her to one of her caretakers, who informed me she was going through a period of decline. When I probed further, she made me aware that once residents reach C&D they go through a pattern of declines and plateaus, during declines they exhibit some of the symptoms of depression, such as exhaustion and constant sleep, however they will still move to participate in activities, but will usually sit alone and nap during them. For my remaining time of study she was in a decline stage, and was thus not conducive to research.

I moved on to Genevieve after wards, and managed to run tests on her with country, Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Rock. With Frank Sinatra on, Genevieve displayed an increased frequency in remembering both sets of conditions for playable cards, as well as displaying more focus on the game. With Elvis she displayed a similar improvement, with a slightly sunnier disposition. I expected to see some kind of specific reaction to country, similar to how Tom reacted to the live performance gospel music, and how Mo reacted to eh live performance  motown music. I was surprised to find out that her reaction to country music was almost identical to her reaction to Elvis in respect to its scale. An even more surprising find was that, when I played rock music, Genevieve had noticeably faster reaction time, though it was still slower, and she was able to react emotionally and respond to my jokes and comments. This leads me to believe that her triggers with respect to music are influenced by music she hasn't hear before, or at least a genre or style that isn't familiar to her, since Elvis, Frank Sinatra, and the older country music I played as a part of these tests were commonplace at the residency home, whereas the rock music playlist I played took most of its songs from a much later time. That summarizes the research I was able to perform over the last few weeks.

Week 7

For my seventh week of interning I focused mainly on finishing my different genre experiments with Tom, as well as trying to determine which C&D residents I should run tests on over the next few weeks. I started by testing Tom with a game of crazy 8's and rock (as my testing last week was shorter than I had liked), and found that there was complete consistency with what I had observed previously. I then turned my focus to identifying some primary research candidates from C&D. To do so, I took into account what I had observed previously in live performances, which served as my best indicator without direct contact, as well as observing their morning activities. C&D have a much more active set of morning activities than A&B, consisting of beach ball volleyball, horseshoes, and the musical styling of Elvis, among other artists. In general, the residents were very active and eager to participate, two of whom especially enjoyed the activities, and reacted uniquely to the music being played, their names are Molina and Genevieve. Intrigued by my observations on C&D, as well as reading an article documenting the effects of exercise on dementia patients, I decided to observe and compare the morning activities of A&B to those of C&D. On A&B, the residents usually read from the Daily Chronicle, as well as playing games of ring toss, with music provided form the genre of  swing on the TV. The residents are primarily interested in napping during this time,  and only a few can be seen participating. It is my goal in the coming weeks to do what I can to test Molina and Genevieve in the same custom as I have tested Tom, Jeanette, and Virginia, as well as determine the reason why there are differences in participation among the residents of different sides.

Week 6

For my sixth week I continued testing different genres with the Jeanette and Virginia, as well as catching up on the genres I had not yet tested with Tom. I started with testing the genres of rock and alternative. I noticed that Jeanette seems to meld her personality to the music she listens too when we play. When I turned on rock music, for instance, she became much more irritable and short, and when I played alternative, she was much more calm than irritable. She displayed an ability to support conversation and play with these two genres of music as opposed to Elvis, and Frank Sinatra. Virginia was improved by this music than the previous genres, and appeared more distracted than soothed by it, exacerbating her forgetfulness of the game rules. I tested Tom with Elvis, rock and alternative as well. Tom seemed to remain relaxed and strategic during the games wit hall three genres, though he reacted to conversation differently during each genre. During Elvis, he responded by smiling and laughing at whatever was said. When he listened to rock, he would act out a fair bit more, responding with whatever wit he could think of. Alternative caused him to almost shelter up, resulting in little response to conversation. I plan to use my remaining weeks to study exercise and it's relevance via morning activities, and attempt to study how different genres affect the C&D residents.