GCSE Graphics: Stakeholder enquiry

[Rebecca27]

Hello everyone,
I am currently in year 10, doing GCSE graphics. As part of our assessment, I have chosen to design a product that helps connect together people with Alzheimer's and/or encourage social inclusion. I have chosen to focus on people with Alzheimer's because I feel it has a devastating impact on both the patients and their family members. Moreover, people with Alzheimer's feel increasingly isolated or excluded from our society. It would be extremely helpful if you could post any problems people with Alzheimer's face commonly face, suggestions of products that may help fight those problems. All suggestions are welcomed.Thank you so much for taking your time to read this post. I will really appreciate any suggestions at all.

 

[stanleypj]

Hi Rebecca. Welcome to TP.
Would you care to say a little more about the product you have in mind? This might prompt others to respond. I'm sure people will be grateful, and interested.

 

[Beate]

I agree. It would be easier if we had something to comment on as we shouldn't have to do all the work for you. I hope you're doing your research and visiting places where you can talk to carers and people with dementia in person? Btw, there are a lot more dementia types than just Alzheimer's - surely you don't want to exclude them? A good place to start is actually reading the threads on this forum to see what the common problems are, and reading the factsheets about all the aspects to do with dementia.

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/get-support/publications-factsheets-full-list

 

[nitram]

It might be an idea to refer to dementia rather than Alzheimer's.
There are many other types of dementia all with similar problems.

 

[Rebecca27]

Hello everyone,
I am really sorry about the last post, I was sill carrying out my research then to find out the type of product I want to make. Now I have finally made the decision, I would really like to hear your views on it please. A problem I noted is that many children don’t spend enough time with their grandparents due to various reasons, one of which is dementia. I have a friend who has a grandpa with dementia, for almost a year. Having seen her struggle to connect with him, inspired me to research further into dementia. Since then, I have heard so many heartbreaking stories from children whose grandparents suffer from dementia, and how it has impacted their relationships with them. My aim in my GCSE Graphics Design project, is to design a board game that helps connect children with their grandparents often and is inclusive of dementia patients. I was wondering if anyone could perhaps suggest some board games that they would love to be redesigned to suit people with dementia, or any possible board game ideas. Any feedback would be most helpful. I look forward to hearing from you.
Help from you would be much appreciated
Kind Regards
Rebecca

 

[Amethyst59]

Hello everyone,
I am really sorry about the last post, I was sill carrying out my research then to find out the type of product I want to make. Now I have finally made the decision, I would really like to hear your views on it please. A problem I noted is that many children don’t spend enough time with their grandparents due to various reasons, one of which is dementia. I have a friend who has a grandpa with dementia, for almost a year. Having seen her struggle to connect with him, inspired me to research further into dementia. Since then, I have heard so many heartbreaking stories from children whose grandparents suffer from dementia, and how it has impacted their relationships with them. My aim in my GCSE Graphics Design project, is to design a board game that helps connect children with their grandparents often and is inclusive of dementia patients. I was wondering if anyone could perhaps suggest some board games that they would love to be redesigned to suit people with dementia, or any possible board game ideas. Any feedback would be most helpful. I look forward to hearing from you.
Help from you would be much appreciated
Kind Regards
Rebecca

Hello, Rebecca...that sounds like a good idea! You’d need to keep the board quite simple, with big numbers, and make the playing pieces quite good and chunky to hold too. You might even make playing pieces from a familiar small object that would be relevant to someone in their seventies or eighties ...umm...a clothes peg, for a lady? Or a nut or bolt for a man who may have been a mechanic? I wonder if you could somehow incorporate a way to stimulate memories...for example, land in a square and have to sing a favourite song, or name something that is green. I am sure you will think of some other things. And our lovely members will give you some ideas too!

 

[canary]

The trouble with a lot of board games is that they may be too complex for the person with dementia who may have limited concentration and understanding of the rules.

What about snakes and ladders, though? Its probably simple enough for them to remember how to play it. Make the snakes and ladders bold and the rest of the graphics not too childish. Add a dice with actual numbers on it rather than spots too.

Not a board game, but something that they could probably play is "snap". Make bigger cards that they can handle, simple bright images and, again, not a childish theme.

 

[Malalie]

You can't teach an old dog new tricks - you can't in fact teach a person with dementia anything at all! Their reality is slowly forgetting how to do even the most mundane things. It's tragic...

Although all sufferers are different and have different problems, I think that it's generally acknowledged that their past memories are far more reliable than their more recent ones - in my relatives case, she was extremely happy and comfortable to be talking about times 60 years ago when she lived with her Mum and Dad and siblings. Ask her if she wanted chocolate cake or carrot cake with her tea and she would become unsure, confused, agitated, angry.....

I do like the idea of a board game though - it's an old fashioned thing to do and something that most older people would have done in their past. I would approach it in a different way though, and research making old classic games a little more exciting for children maybe, and as Amethyst says, make the bits and pieces chunkier and easy to read. Could even be a bit educational for the children if it included old things that maybe Grandma remembers and they have never seen. Eventually, I found that MIL was at her calmest and happiest if I was asking her about old times and old things - even when she was really ill, you could see that she loved to tell me something I didn't know, and it gave us a chance to have some real conversation.

Good Luck.

 

[Rebecca27]

Thank you so much for all of your replies, I really appreciated it. I am now at the design stage of my project and I would like to get an insight to what types of games interest elderly people more. I am planning to ask the same question to my target age group (children aged between 5-10). I could then perhaps use the two sets of answers to find a type of game that interests both generations, which will hopefully give me a starting point for generating my initial designs. Thank you so much for taking your time to read this post.

 

[canary]

I am now at the design stage of my project and I would like to get an insight to what types of games interest elderly people more.

Why dont you take a selection of games to a local care home and find out which ones are popular?

Try things like snakes and ladders, Kerplunk, Hungry Hippos etc. You might try adapting a traditional game by adding forfeits - squawk like a chicken ..... sing "the wheels on the bus"........... stick out your tongue.........