What is geriatrics?
Geriatrics is a branch of medicine that brings together specialized personnel who can provide comprehensive and complete care for the elderly. The field of action of geriatrics is characterized by:
- Elderly people aged 60-65 years with disease tending to disability and/or with multple pathologies with psychic and social factors that condition the evolution of the disease. This is due to the aging of the population, since in old age the incidence and prevalence of degenerative diseases increases.
- Greater tendency to chronic diseases.
- Greater need for continuous care and social resources.
- Geriatric syndromes: cognitive impairment (dementia), depressive disorder, acute confusional state (delirium) and palliative care in geriatrics.
Objectives of intervention in geriatrics
The main objective of intervention in geriatrics is to improve the cognitive functions of the patient to promote their occupational areas.
In addition, there are a number of specific objectives:
- Increase the cognitive function of attention.
- To implement the development of memory.
- To promote spatio-temporal orientation.
Cognitive session in geriatrics
First of all, to work on attention, the following activities will be carried out:
Count stimuli by type.
This activity consists of counting how many stimuli of each type there are, that is, counting the number of elements of each type.
Duration: 5 minutes.
Copying letter matrices
In this exercise the patient will have to copy incomplete matrices by looking at a model matrix.
Duration: 5 minutes.
Size Comparison
In this worksheet the patient has to determine the size relationship between a series of images.
Duration: 5 minutes.
Next, to work on orientation, the following activities will be worked:
Location in time
This activity consists of locating the time, day, month, year and season, choosing the correct option among several possibilities.
Duration: 5 minutes.
Objects, Places and Professionals
In this exercise the patient will have to relate various objects with the places where they are obtained and the professionals who are in charge of them.
Duration: 5 minutes.
Household Objects
This activity consists of locating where in the house the various objects presented would be located.
Duration: 5 minutes.
Finally, to work on memory, the following activities will be carried out:
Greater Than and Less Than
This generator consists of writing the numbers immediately smaller and larger of a series of digits.
Duration: 5 minutes.
Home delivery
This activity consists of remembering the order in which the buildings are illuminated and reproducing them in reverse order.
Duration: 5 minutes.
Conclusions on the intervention with NeuronUP for cognitive stimulation in geriatrics
The conclusion we draw from these activities is that ICTs are a much better tool for an intervention in geriatrics than we might have previously thought, since they help us as professionals when intervening, as well as to see the evolution of the patient, since NeuronUP allows us to observe everything the patient does.
Likewise, the NeuronUP platform offers endless possibilities, being able to choose the group to which each activity is addressed, modulating the level, and choosing the function to work.
In our working life we could use this tool, since apart from the wide range of activities offered, they are like “mini-games” and make the session does not become heavy and the patient can maintain concentration in an appropriate manner throughout the same, as well as help you in a more dynamic way to improve their cognitive functions.
In addition to Olalla Sáiz, Jon Arancón García, María del Carmen Rodríguez Gómez, María Sánchez García and Alba Vivar Robles contributed to this article.