Brain Gym Improves Cognitive Function for Elderly With Demensia

Abstract

Background: Dementia is a combine of clinical symptoms caused by various background diseases and is characterized by loss of shortterm memory, global disorders, mental functions (including language functions), withdrawal of abstract thinking skills, difficulty in caring

for himself, behavioral changes, emotional instability and loss of time recognition and place. Brain gym is one of the exercises to improve

cognitive performance on elderly with dementia.

Objectives: This study was to determine the effect of brain gym on cognitive performance on elderly with dementia in Social Service Unit

Tresna Werdha Jember.

Methods: A Quasy Experimental design was done to conduct 30 elderly with dementia were recruited using purposive sampling divided

into 2 groups, experimental and control group. The independent variable of research this study was brain gym and the dependent variable

was cognitive function at elderly. Data were collected by using MMSE score and then analyzed using Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test with

level of significance α ≤ 0.05.

Results: The results identified a significant influence between the implementation of Brain Gym to improve cognitive function in the

elderly with dementia.

Conclusion: Brain gym increase cognitive performance on elderly with dementia.