Screen time could be the drug-free mood-booster every person with dementia needs

 

Screen time could be the drug-free mood-booster every person with dementia needs

Anyone who has cared for a senior with dementia and its accompanying negative moods — from confusion to anger, sadness to apathy — has probably wished they could flick a magic wand and turn that mood around, STAT.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy and Generation Connect, a company that develops mobile software for use in home care, may have found a solution that’s almost that simple: screen time. Specifically, screen time spent looking at photos, listening to music or watching videos on YouTube improved the moods of half of care recipients in the pilot study. Researchers see the intervention as a promising alternative to prescribing dementia sufferers antidepressants. 

How the research was done

The research, conducted between 2017 and 2018, involved Generation Connect staff training caregivers to develop personalized tablet sessions for their patients. 

“The personalized experience involves the family providing insights into what the patient likes, [such as] big band music, and custom content related to this topic is pushed to the tablet for the caregiver to use when interacting with the care recipient,” says study author Jay Ford, a professor in the pharmacy school’s Social Sciences division.

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