They used to play with it dreaming of adult life, today they go back to it remembering that of girls. It happens in the RSA San Raffaele of Campi Salentina (Lecce) where the operators of the structure, in the wake of the Barbie phenomenon, have given some to a group of patients with Alzheimer’s.
“The reaction was surprising – notes Irene Patruno, professional educator of the residence, explaining that “as part of the Doll Therapy laboratory, the Alzheimer’s patients were given the opportunity to choose which doll to play with among the various ones present. Playing with Barbies was not and will never be the same as playing with other dolls, in fact, those who played with Barbies often didn’t play with other dolls at all.”
The patients who chose her, distrustful during the previous sessions, undoubtedly had a personal background linked to the most famous doll in the world, so much so that they began to relate to it as if they had never stopped doing it, improvising hairstyles, changes of dress and dialogues perhaps never really forgotten.
“Doll therapy, or doll therapy, is part of the so-called non-pharmacological interventions used in the treatment of dementia – adds Maria Giovanna Pezzuto, a psychologist at the Salento Rsa – visual and body contact, tactile manipulation and dialogue with the doll can stimulate cognitive processes and memory, facilitate dialogue, relational capacity, relaxation and emotional processes, decrease behavioral and sleep disorders, irritability and a sense of depression”.
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