Brain-Activating Rehabilitation

　Brain-Activating Rehabilitation for dementia patients provides an environment where elderly participants can laugh and be themselves

Principles of BAR

1) Pleasant Atmosphere

2) Praising

3) Communication

4) Social Role

5) Errorless Learning

　In general, non-pharmacological dementia rehabilitation techniques are effective according to the therapist’s skill and experience. The majority of studies of dementia rehabilitation have focused on the differentiation of individual techniques and a comparison of their effects. We think that the principles of intervention are much more important than individual techniques because intersubjectivity between participants, their families and care staff has a much greater effect.

　BAR is a new concept of rehabilitation for dementia patient. Dementia patients usually feel anxiety. They often make mistake because their memory impairment. So they lose confidence. BAR take notice that they can do now. Their self-esteem was recovered by BAR. And BAR gives dementia patients a motivation to live and interact with others.

BAR involves five basic principles:

A) creating a pleasant environment for dementia patients. 　　

B) encouraging communication between patients and staff. 　　

C) praising patients to raise their self-esteem; dementia patients often make mistakes, so low self-esteem is a common problem. 　　

D) giving dementia patients social role; again, this gives dementia patients a motivation to live and interact with others. 　　

E) errorless learning; this is about giving dementia patients an opportunity to be the one who doesn’t make mistakes.

＊Yamaguchi H, Maki Y, Yamagami T. Overview of nonpharmacologica-lintervention for dementia and principles of Brain-activating rehabilitation. Psychogeriatrics 10 (4) 206-213, 2010.