Date of Award

1990

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Nursing

First Advisor

Barbara K. Haight

Second Advisor

Mary P. Christ

Abstract

This pilot study determined the ability of Alzheimer patients to recognize bath day using a bath calendar with a specific visual cue to denote bath day. A quasi-experimental design using a control and experimental group receiving a pre and post test was employed. Sixteen subjects scoring on the MSQ in the middle dementia area and living in an area nursing home participated in this study. Caregivers of subjects in the experimental group were responsible for reinforcing the cue to the subjects daily for four (4) weeks. Pre and post recognition and MSQ scores were tallied and differences between groups were tested at the .05 level of significance using a Kruskal Wallis l-Way ANOVA test. Results of the study demonstrated that a direct relationship exists between the use of the bath calendar and recognition of bath day as evidenced by a chi-square of 12.1739, p<.0005. No relationship was found in MSQ scores. Results indicate that pictorial cues may be useful in structuring the functional activities of daily living in Alzheimer patients.

Rights

All rights reserved. Copyright is held by the author.

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