Cognitive Key Question Flashcards
How can psychology help treat people suffering from Dementia?
P1 - Explaining Dementia - Dementia is an illness that affects 850,000 people in the UK, with this set to rise to 1million by 2025. Tends to affect the elderly but 40,000 under 65 have it in the UK. Common symptoms are loss of memory & confusion. No cure, but it’s estimated that if we could delay it’s onset for 5 years we could have the numbers of deaths. One method to help treat dementia is Cognitive Stimulation - stimulating the brain using activities such as singing etc. Another is Validation Therapy - Hogeway village is a dementia village where residents can ‘live in the past’ without their conceptions of the world being contradicted. Residents more healthy & alert than normal sufferers.
P2 - Application - Tulving’s Episodic LTM can be applied to dementia. Dementia sufferers tend to lose recent episodic memories, with the disease ‘working backwards’ until only childhood memories remain. Semantic Memory can be applied to Cognitive Stimulation. The use of allowing dementia sufferers to play with kindergarten children often allows for memories of their when their own children were young to be remembered. Reconstructive Memory can be applied to Hogeway village. Each part of the village associates w a different schema of when the patient was younger, allowing for residents to remain calm and active.
P3 - Conclusion - Cognitive Psychology cannot cure dementia, yet it can give us methods of identifying it early or delaying it’s onset, which can be crucial in reducing number of deaths. Knowledge on which areas it affects can also help scientists find cure. There is an ethical debate over wether allowing sufferers to ‘live in the past’ in places such as Hogeway is ethical, yet evidence shows us places such as Hogeway are effective in allowing for longer, healthier lives.
