Grace Vesey

Participant: 75-year-old woman diagnosed with early onset dementia.

1. Activity Title : Bingo

2. Sources :

5 Ways Bingo Can Help Boost Senior Health. (2019, July 17). Above & Beyond Home Health
Care and Hospice Care. https://abovebeyondhc.com/about-us/community-service/5-ways-
bingo-can- help-boost-senior-health/
Five Games to Stimulate a Person with Dementia’s Brain. (2018, November 7). Caregiver
Support. https://www.wehelpcaregivers.com/news/brain-games-for-dementia/
The Surprising Benefits of Bingo. (2017, April 26). The Davis
Community. https://www.thedaviscommunity.org/2017/04/26/surprising-benefits-bingo

3. Equipment Needed – In order to play Bingo, you need:

• a bingo scorecard sheet

• a writing utensil or bingo chips to mark/circle/cover your acquired squares
• bingo balls (can be replaced with slips of paper with written letter-number combinations
that are compatible with the bingo sheet or sheets in use
• A bowl, basket, bingo spinner or anything alike to shuffle the letter-number
combinations that will be called out

4. Activity Description –

• This activity can be completed alone or with multiple people

• Participants begin by receiving a bingo sheet
• Participants will use a bingo spinner or bucket to shuffle all possible bingo letter-number
combinations. These can be on bingo balls or can be written on slips of paper if
participant(s) do not own bingo balls
• The participant(s) will shuffle the bingo letter-number combinations and at random pick
one out of the bunch
• The participant will read the letter-number combination to themselves, or one member of
a group will read the letter-number combination aloud to the group
• Participants will then check their bingo scorecard for the letter-number combination that
was called out
• Participants will use a writing utensil to fill out their bingo sheet or bingo chips to cover
the letter-number combinations they get
 • The letter-number combinations will continue to them be picked at random until someone
calls BINGO
• BINGO can be acquired from getting 5 letter-number combinations in a row. This row
can be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal on the scorecard

5. Primary social interaction pattern(s) (activity analysis) – Bingo would mainly be

considered multilateral, because the participants that play bingo are typically in a
group, and complete a game competitively since there is always a winner at Bingo,
yet there is no antagonist. Since Bingo can be played alone however, it can also be
extra-individual, because the participant would be using action towards a bingo sheet
and bingo balls, yet there would be no one else involved.

Adaptation: Bingo is a game that can improve the brain’s cognitive abilities in ways such as it’s
processing, alertness and memory (5 Ways Bingo Can Help Boost Senior Health, 2019). An
adaptation to Bingo for a 75-year old women diagnosed with early on-set dementia would be to
change the letter-number combinations on the bingo sheets to animals. A woman who is 75 and
has early on-set dementia may struggle to remember certain combinations that are called out,
especially when looking all over her bingo sheet to find the called out combination. An easy
adaptation for this would be using a card that has animals on it instead, so that the participant can
easily remember what animal was called out and quickly look to their card for that animal
instead of memorizing both a letter and number. Aside from animals, The Davis Community
notes that “some common adaptations include playing with smaller groups, using cards with
larger print or higher contrast, and asking players to identify colors, animals, or other familiar
objects rather than just letters and numbers” (The Surprising Benefits of Bingo, 2017).