Effect of the occupation recreational therapy on the elderly bedridden patients′ emotional state and their cognitive function

Abstract

Objective To investigate the application effect of occupation recreational therapy in improving the elderly bedridden patients′ negative emotions and cognitive function. Methods Totally 82 cases of elderly patients corresponding to diagnosis standards were randomly divided into the control group (conventional drug treatment and nursing) and the intervention group (conventional treatment and occupation recreational therapy) with 41 cases in each group. Before and 6 months after the intervention, we evaluated the bedridden degree, anxiety, depression and cognitive ability with self-rating anxiety scale (SAS), geriatric depression scale (GDS), mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) scales. Results 6 months after intervention, the SAS and GDS score of patients in the control group increased from (53.85±5.659) and (14.56±3.9310) to (56.83±6.245) and (18.44±4.219), and their emotional state was significantly worse (P 0.05), while their MoCA scores were (24.90±2.095) and (26.20±1.939) (P<0.05). Conclusions The occupation recreational therapy plays an important role in improving the elderly bedridden patients′ emotional state and protecting their cognitive function. Key words: Aged; Anxiety; Depression; Cognitive function; Occupation recreational therapy