| Remotivation in the Care of those with Dementia, Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease and other Neurological Conditions
Unlike most other therapies and treatment approaches, remotivation was created to work with patients of all mental functioning levels.
It is effective with the severely developmentally disabled who are born with cognitive disabilities described as mental retardation, with persons who are mentally impaired from other neurological conditions such as schizophrenia and with persons who develop various forms of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
An example of a research study at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA showing the benefits of remotivation for person's with Huntington's disease demonstrates how stimulation within a climate of acceptance can improve quality of life and functioning levels. Here is a link to the abstract at the National Library of Medicine:
A full text copy of the article can be found at:
This article has a good description of how remotivation is applied in treatment with persons with servere psychiatric or neurological disorders.
This powerpoint presenation by the author, Jang-ho Cha, MD, PhD, of the above reseach in 2010, outlines how remotivation is a form of Environmental Enrichment that benefits the patient psychologically and neurologically.
Feel free to explore the new field of neurogenisis and how remotivation can prevent the development of mental illness, help facilitate the healing of neurological damage and benefit those with mental retardation. See these article as a begining:
Evidence that a positive group experience may promote more neurogenesis and consequently less depression and better mood is described in the following study.
One may wonder how remotivation can be effective with persons with all these very different forms of mental impairment. It is because remotivation focuses on what is NOT impaired by the disease!!!
This is supported by the following quote from the above article:
...in animal models of stroke and traumatic brain injury, enhanced motor and cognitive performances have been observed with exposure to enriched environment. Interestingly, these improvements were associated with greater dendritic arbors in the undamaged contralateral motor cortex, suggesting that enrichment mediates functional recovery through increased neural plasticity in the remaining neurons. Moreover, recent studies suggest that the beneficial effects of enrichment on motor skill recovery following stroke may be linked to increased number of oligodendrocytes and the oligodendrocyte progenitors expressing the proteoglycan, neuron-glia 2 (NG2). Third, in animal models of autism, environmental enrichment has been shown to reverse some of the behavioral abnormalities associated with autism...
As with other forms of physical rehabilitation, the patients learn to make accommodation to the disability. Remotivation is not a treatment that necessarily cures the disability. These diseases or disabilities are not yet curable by modern medicine. While medicine continues to search for medications that reduce memory loss, disordered thinking or help children learn as in the case of autism or other learning disabilities, medical care provided to those with chronic conditions consists of therapies or programs that help people function at their highest level and to live a meaningful life with their disability.
Remotivation is one of these therapies or programs that maximize abilities. It works with the "unwounded personality or self". It works with what the patient CAN DO, not what they cannot do.
Therefore, remotivation can complement traditional treatment with medications and diet to help people maintain functioning and use what they have to live life.
How does remotivation work with the "unwounded or healthy" parts of the person?
In provisional remotivation training you will learn use pre-written discussion plans that incorporate the 5 Steps of Remotivation Therapy, which adjust the discussion to focus on the patient's remaining abilities. They are:
- Climate of Acceptance
- Bridge to Reality
- Sharing the World We Live
- Exploring the Work of the World
- Climate of Appreciation
In the Remotivation Certification training you will learn how to develop remotivation to the ability level of the individuals you serve and the groups you form.
There is 60 years of research that demostrates the effectiveness of remotivation to help persons with cognitive disability, servere mental illness, mental retardation/learning disabilities and other forms of neurological impairment. See the menu for Evidence Base to review the research.
Incorporated in these Steps are the use of association, open ended questioning from the abstract to the concrete and from the subjective to objective. Remotivation also uses various art forms to help reach the person's healthy remaining abilities, such as written, verbal and visual pictures (poems).
While scientists can speculate as to why remotivation works, we are not concerned with the WHY as much as we are concerned with the FACT that is WORKS. We value the fact that is does benefit the cognitively impaired.
NRTO Inc. can arrange for a certified instructor to come to your organization to teach you to use remotivation in your practice or in your organization. You can also register for an online class using video conferencing to learn remotivation.
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