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.