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This is me: Evaluation of a boardgame to promote social engagement, wellbeing and agency in people with dementia through mindful life-storytelling
Niedderer, Kristina Holthoff-Detto, Vjera van Rompay, Thomas JL Karahanoğlu, Armağan Ludden, Geke DS Almeida, Rosa Durán, Raquel Losada Aguado, Yolanda Bueno Lim, Jennifer NW Smith, Tina
Niedderer, Kristina
Holthoff-Detto, Vjera
van Rompay, Thomas JL
Karahanoğlu, Armağan
Ludden, Geke DS
Almeida, Rosa
Durán, Raquel Losada
Aguado, Yolanda Bueno
Lim, Jennifer NW
Smith, Tina
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2021-12-15
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Abstract
Receiving a dementia diagnosis is a difficult experience for most people and often affects their wellbeing negatively. To support people's wellbeing, in a therapeutic context, life-storytelling, reminiscence and mindfulness are used with people with dementia. In an everyday context, traditional games are used as a resource for stimulating memory, cognition and social activity. While an increasing number of creative strategies are available to support people with dementia, the area of board games design and their effect on wellbeing is underexplored. This paper reports on the evaluation of the This is Me (TIM) mindful life-storytelling board game by the European project MinD. Using a co-design methodology, TIM was developed with and for people with mild to moderate dementia to support their wellbeing by enhancing self-empowerment and social engagement. A focus group methodology was used to evaluate TIM with 50 people with dementia and 19 carers across four countries. TIM was evaluated with regard to the usability and experience of the design as well as people's emotional wellbeing, social engagement and agency. The thematic analysis demonstrated that the combination of life-storytelling and mindfulness allowed players to engage in meaningful social interaction and, as a result, they reported enjoyment, learning, more acceptance of the past and present situation, and that they perceived looking forward into the future together with others as helpful. The study demonstrates that design can be a useful means to support people with dementia in aspects of emotional wellbeing, social engagement and a sense of agency.
Citation
Niedderer, K., Holthoff-Detto, V., van Rompay, T.J.L. et al. (2022) This is me: Evaluation of a boardgame to promote social engagement, wellbeing and agency in people with dementia through mindful life-storytelling. Journal of Aging Studies, 60, March 2022, 100995.
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Journal article
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en
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© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence.
The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2021.100995
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0890-4065
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The ‘MinD - Designing for People with Dementia’ project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 691001.