2.3 REHABILITATIONS FOR RECONSTRUCTION OF AWAKENING-SLEEP RHYTHM AND MEMORY CONSOLIDATION
The light of the hospital room is turned on at 6:00 a.m. and the inpatients receive photic stimulation every morning.35When the awakening-sleep rhythm was reconstructed, the patients became able to participate in occupational therapy constantly. The rehabilitation was scheduled in a regular week plan. The patients with severe dementia met into Murofushi care system in the dementia disease treatment ward. They sat at table of ”family members” and participated in the group occupational therapy in a regular week plan.36 Because the patients having defects of memory in dementia are in the experience of the loss about memory and unable to use perspective memory, they tend to be seized with anxiety. The experience of the loss about memory will induce anxiety or depression. The memory about the near past is the origin of time axes for predictions and the prediction from the origin is perspective memory, which is the expectation of the near future. The patients with short-term memory impairment lost the origin, cannot know what is planned or will happen, and show continuing anxiety. We changed the continuation of moments of uneasiness into the mental status in which comfortable senses were continued. By the condition that the patients with severe dementia sat around the round table, they saw their faces each other, could exchange greetings and smiles, and spoke to each other. They did not become alone and continued to get the stimulation of smile. And they changed into the existence letting the other patients feel relieved and formed ”family members”. They were freed from uneasiness, felt calm and after that participated in group occupational therapy in daytime.