Project homeMotivation and Dementia
"Lack of motivation, or apathy, and lack of interest in activities affect over 70% of persons with dementia."
For example, Mayers and Griffin24 utilized mechanical toys to stimulate activity in patients with dementia. Le Bar et al25 demonstrated that emotion-based pictures increased interest and activity in persons with earlystage Alzheimer’s disease. Hoffmann et al26 used computer programs with personally relevant activities and personal photographs to improve motivation and positive attitude in persons with Alzheimer’s disease. They demonstrated improved social competence in persons with early dementia and improved orientation in persons with moderate dementia.
Emotional curiosity: modulation of visuospatial attention by arousal is preserved in aging and early-stage Alzheimer’s disease
Although attention to color may play a role in conveying the emotional impact of a scene (e.g. images containing blood), color information alone was insufficient to drive and sustain visual scanning patterns on the task when the stimuli were blurred. These findings support the idea that extraction of the emotional content of the scene, rather than mere attention to lower-level visual features, is of primary relevance to task performance.
Showing a visual emotional stimulus results in the subject performing some pre-conscious and non-visible mental actions and results in them moving their eyes to the stimulus.
In contrast to these deficits, the present study suggests that visual orientation and sustained attention to emotionally-salient information may remain intact, at least in the early stages of the disease.
https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1996.tb34427.x
the patients experienced the occupation with familiar issues as motivating and emotionally rewarding.
Thus we hope to have emphasized the issue of this training approach, which is to train tasks that are of relevance to the patient's personality and self-esteem and relate to everyday activities and quality of living. The aim is to stimulate the patient mentally, to improve self-conception and selfconfidence via feelings of success, in order to help to preserve personal autonomy and a feeling of personal identity as long as possible.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-9450.1990.tb00796.x
Prompting PwD for activities increases their trained activities. Reinforcement doesn't have significant effect.