LACOMBE, Alta. — Doll therapy for Alzheimer’s patients can reduce anxiety, improve communication and reduce wandering.
Tosha Serle, social worker and site manager at Northcott Care Centre in Ponoka, Alta., said it gives them focus and purpose.
“You can have someone who is agitated and they are given a baby and it calms them,” she said.
It’s the inherent calming, caring and loving aspects of nurturing that has led to the use of dementia dolls as a self-administered therapy for some Alzheimer’s sufferers.
Read Also
Nutritious pork packed with vitamins, essential minerals
Recipes for pork
Some believe medications could be reduced or even eliminated in patients using the dolls.
Serle said there are guidelines for the use and introduction of dementia dolls. They should be life-like and representative of an infant 12 months or younger in age.
The dolls are not handed out but rather placed where they can be discovered and chosen. Serle said most people don’t like the responsibility of caring for a baby imposed on them.
Some patients understand the dolls are not real while others believe they are. If the doll has a name, it should be referred to by that name.
Family members are sometimes upset seeing their loved one attached to a doll and find it child-like, demeaning or inappropriate.
Serle compared the deteriorating brain of an Alzheimer’s patient to the unraveling of a knitted sweater. As they regress, early memories are the ones that are forefront in the mind.
For women, it can be the many years spent nurturing their children and families that they remember. The doll might help fill that space and purpose by providing a sense of being needed.
In the past, it was felt that Alzheimer’s patients should be brought to the present but that is now considered to be counter productive, making them more unresponsive, agitated, frustrated and unhappy.
Serle said that once family members witness the positive effect on their loved one’s quality of life, they are more accepting.
She said doll therapy has been in use since before she started at Northcott seven years ago, citing the five dolls on site in the 72-bed facility. Women have claimed all of the dolls.
Nurturing is a basic human instinct present in all people but often stronger in women than men and strengthened in those who have raised children.
“We do have men in the facility who enjoy having children coming to visit but there are no men here with dolls,” Serle said. “The dementia dolls are definitely not a solve-all, but they work for some.”
