Effectiveness of Reality Orientation Therapy on Dementia among the elderly in a selected old age home of Madurai District

The research project is “A quasi experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of Reality Orientation Therapy on dementia among the elderly in a selected old age home of Madurai district. One group pre test post test, pre experimental design was used for this study. A total of 32 samples were selected in the old age home. The tool used was Kingston Dementia Rating Scale to assess the elderly for dementia. The selected elderly were divided in five group for Reality Orientation Therapy. 24hrs reality orientation and class room orientation were used. Both group and individual sessions were carried out in such a way that each individual attends two group sessions and two individual sessions per week and it was administered for a period of 4 week. At the end of 4th week post test was conducted by Kingston Dementia Rating Scale. Study’s conceptual frame work was based on Wiedenbach’s Helping Art of clinical Nursing theory. The data was collected, organized and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The major findings of the study was that mean post test level of dementia score (1.93) was lesser than the mean pre test level of dementia score (4.08).The obtained t-value 7.9993 was statistically highly significant at o.o1 level of significant .There was no association between the post test level of dementia and selected demographic variables. Based on the finding it was recommended that future research can be conducted by using control group to see the effectiveness of Reality Orientation Therapy. As a conclusion Reality Orientation Therapy was effective in improving memory, cognition, orientation, co-ordination, self esteem of demented elderly