An Approach to the Community-dwelling Older Adults in Order to Promote Intercommunication among Participants under the Group Reminiscence Therapy

Abstract

The purpose of this case study is to discuss the effective approach to the community-dwelling older adults to promote intercommunication among participants under the group reminiscence therapy. One of the participants is a man in his late 80s, who has joined an activity since the relevant year. In the first session, it was difficult to get him interested in other participants and to have him communicate with them. The approaches which the group leader provided were as follows: 1) summarizing and transmitting the contents of utterances from other participants, 2) providing the opportunity to utter and 3) improving the attitude by greatly expressing the receptive attitude with sympathy. He began to communicate with other participants as the result of the several sessions. This result suggests that those approaches under the group reminiscence therapy were effective for the community-dwelling older adults, which improves their interest and receptive attitude with sympathy to other participants and promotes intercommunication.