Reminiscence Therapy for the Elderly with Loneliness in Social Institution of Tresna Werdha Banjarbaru South Kalimantan

Abstract

Getting old or aging is a condition that is definitely happened in the life cycle of a human. Becoming an elderly person means a decrease of social activity caused by decreasing of physical and social functions. A feeling of loneliness of the elderly living in an institution emerges due to a desire or a need to interact with other people is limited even nothing at all. Reminiscence therapy is a gradual memory therapy of life cycle focusing on pleasant memories. Reminiscence therapy in group can improve a sense of value, alleviate the feeling of loneliness, and improve communicative ability in group. Reminiscence therapy through pleasant memories can influence a feeling of an elderly person so that it is influential to negative feeling such as loneliness. The study used quasi experiment method with pretest and posttest without control group, with inclusion criteria of the elderly aged minimally 60 years, were able to communicate actively and willed to be a study respondent. The purpose of this study was to find out the effect of reminiscence therapy on loneliness of the elderly in PSTW Budi Sejahtera Banjarbaru South Kalimantan. Based on analysis test result using t-test dependent (pvalue = 0.000), pvalue<0,05, it was concluded that there was a significant effect of reminiscence therapy on loneliness level of the elderly in Social institution of tresna werdha Banjarbaru. Reminiscence therapy can modify the loneliness level of the elderly in Social institution of tresna werdha Banjarbaru South Kalimantan.