Volunteers Adding Life in Dementia

"The VALID intervention will consist of 2 phases. First, volunteers will complete an assessment involving recording of a Life Story for each patient participant. This will include information on the patient's psychosocial history, occupational history, hobbies, interests and preferred activities using information from the LTC medical record and interviews with the patient and family members. Based on this information, a variety of potential psychosocial interventions will be developed for the individual with the assistance of the recreation therapist at the LTC. The second phase will involve implementation of the VALID intervention. Each individual with dementia will receive personalized pleasant activities for a minimum session of 30 minutes at a frequency of 3 times per week. One volunteer will complete the Life Story assessment and up to 3 volunteers may be involved with implementing the VALID program for each resident."