A Pilot Study on the Effect of Rapport on the Task Performance of an Elderly Confused Population

Abstract

Rapport has been viewed traditionally by the helping professions as a prerequisite to effective interaction between therapist and patient. Clinical observations indicate that confused elderly residents of a Home for the Aged have the capacity to establish warm personal relationships with their therapists and caregivers. In order to determine if this apparent rapport has a positive effect on task performance, six confused subjects were assigned either to an experimental or control group. They were administered the Picture Identification Task before and after receiving a program designed to establish rapport with their respective leaders. All testing was done by the experimental group leaders. Thus the experimental subjects had rapport with the administrators, while the control subjects did not. The data indicated that experimental subjects decreased their inappropriate behaviours, were able to respond quicker, and made better use of nonverbal test cues at posttest. Control subjects did not demonstrate these changes. It was concluded that rapport can facilitate some task behaviours despite cognitive impairment.