Ergotherapy – after noticing the first symptoms
According to Edita Akelaitienė, occupational therapist of the health care network “Antėja”, occupational therapy is movement therapy. The main goal of occupational therapy is to help people achieve a more independent quality of daily life, improve physical condition, and cognitive (cognitive) abilities when patients are faced with memory and attention disorders.
“Ergotherapy is focused on patients with physical, emotional and mental disorders. It helps patients adapt to a wide range of challenges so that they can lead independent daily lives. “Ergotherapy differs from physiotherapy in that the aim of physiotherapy is to improve physical mobility, flexibility, pain reduction through exercises and massages”, explains the specialist.
According to her, occupational therapy can help slow the progression of dementia. Dementia is a chronic and progressive brain disorder that damages brain cells. As a result of these lesions, the connection between different parts of the brain, which are responsible for speech, memory, movement, orientation, perception, deteriorates.
“When a person’s memory begins to decline – it becomes difficult for him to remember recent events, orient himself in time, he forgets where he put things, he no longer recognizes his relatives – he can benefit from occupational therapy. Occupational therapists have a variety of tools that help the patient to strengthen cognitive functions – these are memory training tasks, tactile activities, sound and color therapies. All this strengthens the neurons of the brain, which are responsible for cognition and perception”, says E. Akelaitienė.
The help of relatives is extremely important
Improvement of cognitive functions through occupational therapy usually depends on many factors – medication use, stress management, mental stimulation in daily activities. However, says the specialist, if the disease is not very advanced, the improvement can be noticed even after a few months.
According to her, a patient with thought disorders should attend sessions with a therapist at least once or twice a week. However, if his family members have time to deal with their loved one themselves, then specialist help is needed less often.
“Relatives can be extremely helpful to the patient by performing tasks together. After all, someone has to help a person to put together a puzzle, to see that the picture is put together correctly. At home, you can also put clothes or towels in the closet according to color. This kind of help from relatives when organizing the house, putting things in their designated places, helps a person to fix his memory, what should be where”, assures the occupational therapist.
In general, even at home, engaging in various intellectual tasks, solving puzzles, crosswords, playing strategic board and computer games, reading, it is possible to maintain active brain activity and slow down the progression of the disease.
“At home, you can put together puzzles, combine various pictures in pairs. Nowadays, it is already possible to download many computer games that help to develop cognitive functions, one of them is the platform “BrainHQ” created by neuroscientists, which offers various exercises to strengthen memory and attention. It is also important to engage in regular physical activity – walking, running,” advises E. Akelaitienė.
2024-09-04 09:02:30