Positive assessments, monitoring of activities, and dementia

This article studies the use of positive assessments in interaction in Swedish residential care in Finland. The data consisted of four video recordings of baking activities involving professional caregivers and residents with dementia. The method used was conversation analysis. In these activities, caregivers used positive assessments to facilitate the residents’ performance of the task, either by providing them with the resources needed to perform the task or by performing things for the residents. Assessments were used to encourage the residents in attempting to perform the task, making progress in the task, and achieving autonomous activity in the task. The study demonstrated how residents’ reduced functional capacity makes also minor success worth praising, without an undertone of infantilization.