The two theories of ageing are activity theory and disengagement theory; they affect people who are 65+ years old. There are many different type of health care provision and they are for all ages, but I am looking at the later part of life and the effect these two theories of ageing on these provisions.
In a residential home for the elderly activity theory can be used as social and emotional therapy, there is a therapy called ‘doll therapy’ it is used to help service users with dementia.
“Dementia is a word used to describe a group of symptoms including memory loss, confusion, mood changes and difficulty with day-to-day tasks.” http://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org The use of doll therapy can be strange at first to see and elderly lady cuddling a toy doll but it has been found that residents become so attached to the doll that in some homes they have had to introduce high chairs at the dinner table. It is said that this emotional therapy has had a calming effect on the residents, they are wondering less as they seem less confused. There has also been an increase in communication as people as the doll is being used as a talking point for the elderly service user and it is getting them to open up a little bit and the doll therapy has been proven to help improve speech of the clients in the home. However there is a negative side to doll therapy, it is a controversial intervention because it can be extremely upsetting for the service user’s family to see their relative clutching a child’s doll. It could be said that the staff letting the clients use the dolls it is like treating them as children it is also negative because it mostly only works on people who have had children as it brings back memories of when they were caring and nurturing their only children.
A negative of using activity theory in residential homes is that the staff might not have the time to look up and research all these different theories that might ot might not help the service user’s. there is a lot of information out there on the internet so they might not be able to understand what is useful and what is not useful or correct information. Also for a new theory to be