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Abstract
The beneficial nature of therapeutic activity and institutionalized persons with organic dementia has been documented in the literature. An area that was lacking in the literature was behavioral interactions between the individual with organic dementia and another person. The purpose of this study was to examine the interactions between a therapeutic recreation professional and a person who has dementia. The study employed a qualitative methodology that utilized naturalistic non-participant observation technique to explore the behavior and interaction process between participant and therapist in one to one interaction. Two persons that resided in a nursing home considered to have organic dementia of the Alzheimer's type participated in the study. Each subject participated in four activity sessions. The therapist selected the activity sessions based upon the participants) past interests. Observations were recorded on videotape. Each activity session was observed six times to ensure accurate behavioral accounts. The behavioral observations were analyzed according to the behavioral categories and characteristics identified by Rubin, Morris and Berg (1987), as well as additional behavior categories identified by the researcher. Inter-rate reliability was established to be 82 per cent through the method of agreement. The study concluded that the majority of behavioral responses were enhanced during activity participation due to enhance communication strategies used by the therapeutic recreation professional during the activity.