[Faces get names--cognitive training for psychogeriatric patients for remembering names and faces]

Abstract

By systematic training, 14 psychogeriatric patients (aged 70 to 95 years and admitted to day care because of dementia) were taught the first names of 8 members of staff of the day care center. Treatment duration was one month, twice weekly. The therapist introduced the names by a step-by-step approach, beginning with two name-face combinations, and adding one new name (and photograph of that person's face) every next training session. Treatment consisted of a combination of several cognitive strategies: organisation and directed attention, rehearsal, first letter cueing and vanishing cue techniques, and paired-associate learning based on rhymes, pictures and visual imagery. Patients were assigned at random to a treatment and a control group (waiting list condition). Patients in the control group received their training after the waiting period of one month. Using this pretest-posttest-control-group design, we were able to objectively evaluate treatment effects. Treatment caused a significant enhancement of knowledge of staff members names. Gains achieved using this program persisted over at least one month, as could be demonstrated by a follow-up evaluation.