The Effect of Culturally Tailoring a Literature -Based Intervention on the Mood and Engagement of Assisted Living Residents with Dementia

Overview

With 29,000 people aged 65 years or older living with Alzheimer’s disease in Hawai‘i, finding non-invasive, culturally tailored (CT) interventions to improve quality of life is crucial. This study investigates if a CT literature-based intervention affects mood and engagement of Japanese American assisted living residents with dementia. It also examines if residents respond better to Japanese or Hawaiian stories, facilitating conversation about how ethnicity and geographic location stimulates one’s cultural identity. The hypothesis states that introducing a CT read -aloud and discussion will improve mood and increase engagement compared to a non -culturally tailored (NCT) intervention. Over six weeks, three CT and three NCT storytelling sessions were conducted, along with observations. However, the Smiley Face Assessment and Engagement of a Person with Dementia surveys were only administered during the last three sessions. Wilcoxon Signed Rank and Rank Sum tests were used to test for statistical significance of each respective test. Results showed CT interventions had statistically significant improvements in mood and engagement over NCT interventions. Japanese participants displayed higher engagement than non -Japanese participants during CT interventions. Moreover, the Hawaiian NCT session showed high efficacy, indicating the prevalence of a global identity. Aligning interventions with cultural backgrounds has clinical value in enhancing emotional well-being, underscoring the role of CT literature approaches in dementia care.

Competition history

• JSHS 2024 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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