Benefits of Reminiscence for Clients With a Comorbity of Downs Syndrome and Dementia

¶ … patient or clients with Down's syndrome have continued to live longer as evident in the recent past, they are at high risk of developing Dementia, especially Alzheimer's, at an earlier stage than others. The ability of these individuals to live longer is partly attributed to advances in clinical and social care that have significantly increased the life expectancy of persons with learning disabilities. Alzheimer's disease is regarded as the major reason for people to develop Dementia when suffering from Down's syndrome. According to the findings of various studies, nearly every individual with Down's syndrome experience changes in the brain linked to Alzheimer's disease, though not all develop the symptoms of this disease (Watchman & Coppus, 2011).

The possibility of an individual to develop a comorbidity of Down's syndrome and Dementia is very high if the person is suffering from a learning disability. This has contributed to predictions of an increase in the number of people with learning disabilities in contact with clinical and social services by approximately 95%. For clients with comorbidity of Down's syndrome and Dementia, there are several human needs that are critical to their ability to live longer. In addition to being part of reminiscence of these people, the human needs include love, attachment, comfort, identity, inclusion, and occupation.

Reminiscence has been considered as a beneficial practice for such people because of its valuable outcomes including self-control and patience, improved speech, and vivid expression of strong emotions. Some of the major benefits of the process include enhancement of self-worth, encouraging sociability, and identification of the person's past likes, dislikes, and interests (Gordon, n.d.). However, there is an obvious gap in this field regarding the ability of clients with a comorbidity of Down's syndrome and Dementia to benefit from reminiscence, which implies the need for extensive research on the issue.

In efforts to determine the benefits associated with reminiscence for these clients, the research is qualitative and incorporates observation as the main data collection method. Observation seems to be the most appropriate research methodology since it will focus on determining the potential benefits of reminiscence on patients with Down's syndrome and Dementia through examining the processes involved. Since this research is qualitative, it will include a retrospective data analysis conducted based on findings from the observation.

While qualitative research approaches were traditionally established in social science and humanity fields, they have increasingly been used in the medical field for health research. These approaches are intrinsically dynamic and may be based on several assumptions used in quantitative research methods. The main aim of qualitative research approaches is to understand phenomena based on actions, discourse and documents. As a result these approaches seek to determine how and why people understand and give meaning to certain phenomena ("Qualitative Research," 2012). The knowledge and findings obtained in the qualitative studies is interpretive and dependent on the social context to a certain degree.

Based on this understanding, qualitative research approaches are the appropriate research strategies in this field since an understanding of the benefits of reminiscence to patients with a comorbidity of Down's syndrome and Dementia is dependent on the social context of the clients. This study will be based on inductive understanding of the participants or clients in order to obtain analytic interpretation of their views and actions regarding reminiscence. The analytic understanding of clients' views and actions will be crucial in determination of the existing gap on the benefits of reminiscence to Down's syndrome and Dementia patients. Notably, the inductive understanding will involve direct interaction with participants or respondents to gain insights of their perceptions about the activity.

As previously mentioned, this study will use observation as the method for collecting data for testing research questions and/or hypotheses. Through observation, the researcher will place much emphasis on the depth rather than breadth of the study. A pre-determined representative sample will be selected from the population of clients with a comorbidity of Down's syndrome and Dementia. Observations will be made on the representative sample at the baseline and within a specific period of time.

The data collection method will help the researcher to focus on collecting diverse but overlapping data on a certain number of cases or conditions. The observation on the representative sample will be carried out at the health care facility and in their home settings. However, the selection of this representative sample for observation is based on their ability to contribute to theory development as well as being directed by upcoming trends during the course of gathering data.