In the beginning I presented dementia as a disease, phases of its development and different models of understanding dementia through history. Field of social work in homes for the elderly requires specific approaches, so I described those and different roles of social workers at care for old people or people with dementia. My research was qualitative, I was gathering data with guidelines for interview. In my sample I included seven professional workers from seven different homes for the elderly in Slovenia, who take care of people with dementia and engage with them on daily basis. Results indicated, that professional workers were using image material when working with people with dementia quite often. Image materials and photographs are important part of many activities, they are using them also to help with spatial and time orientation. Professional workers noticed many positive effects, when looking individually at personal pictures from their past life with people with dementia. They are noticing, that image materials help with recalling memories and they encouraging users to communicate more, they spontaneously start narrate anecdotes, that they remembered, because of the photograph. Professional workers wish to use photographs more, but they need more education for using different methods. They miss cooperation with relatives of the residents and more time to work with people with dementia individually. More fundings should be allocated for dementia department in order to be able to prepare more diverse program and organize activities also in the afternoons, on weekends and holidays. Due to positive responses of the residents, I suggest more frequent use of pictures in the activities and creating a photoalbum for each indivual resident. I suggest more eduacation for employees to gain knowledge of new approaches. My suggestion to improve this field of work is to increase the number of employees, because with more hours of individual work, we would achieve slower development of disease.
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