M1:

Case study:

Gemma is 78 years of age, and she attends Gold Peak Day care center for the elderly where she attends
five full days a week from Monday to Tuesday. She has poor mobility because she has rheumatoid
arthritis, eyesight and was just recently diagnosed with dementia. She enjoys gardening with her
grandchildren when she is at home but has issues with her mobility and eyesight. She has continued
gardening during her time at the day care. However, recently her family decided to put her in the day
care center full time (Monday to Friday) as they are not able to spend time or take care of her. This
made Gemma feel anxious, lonely and sad. The staff at the day care have noticed Gemma has not been
interacting with anyone lately and has not been participating in the gardening club. They suspected that
she may have depression.

Knitting:

Positives: Knitting could help Gemma's physical health as her fine motor skills would develop as knitting
involves the movement of one's wrists to knit as the knitting patterns involve wrist movement. Also,
knitting is a productive activity. Knitting would help improve Gemma's intellectual health as the
movement of forming a pattern must be focused on. This is because if the pattern is done wrong the
whole knit will not go the way it should. Therefore hand-eye coordination is used as one must focus on
their hand movements so they can get the pattern right. Knitting can help improve Gemma’s emotional
health as knitting involves concentration which means one would not focus on other things but knitting.
This can relieve one from stress and anxiety as they would forget about stressful things whilst focusing
on knitting. When finishing your knitted piece, one may feel a sense of self- achievement which would
make them happy and proud of themselves. This may boost Gemma's self-esteem as she has achieved
something new which she may have thought she would not be able to do because of her condition.
Knitting can help improve Gemma's social health as she can give her finished knitted pieces to her
friends and family. She also could participate and attend many knitting clubs/ activities which she then
can talk to others who have interests like her. She could talk to them about knitting and other things and
may build relationships from the common interests they have.

Negatives: Knitting can worsen Gemma’s physical health as she has rheumatoid arthritis and knitting can
worsen bodily and joint pain. Knitting is also time consuming as it takes quite a long time to finish one
piece as there are many steps to knitting such as the looping patterns until it creates one piece. Knitting
can affect Gemma’s intellectual health as she may forget things as she has dementia. When knitting
there are a lot of different hand movements/ loops to learn, and Gemma may get annoyed if she forgets
how to knit. This may lead to frustration. Knitting can affect Gemma’s emotional health as when getting
into knitting it isn’t easy as it is a complex skill and takes a long time to get the hang of it. This may
frustrate Gemma as she may find it hard to knit and because of this she may not want to participate in
any activities. This may be because she feels that she can’t do or achieve something because of her
condition. She may feel that she can’t do things independently and this may make her feel hopeless.
Knitting may affect Gemma’s social health as she may find it hard to participate in any other activities if
she feels that she can't knit, which would make her lose her enthusiasm to do other activities.
Gardening:

Positives: Gardening can help Gemma’s physical health as if fruit or vegetables are being produced
(planted) she could be used to make a healthy meal which contains healthy nutrients. This could help
stimulate the immune system. Having a healthy nutritious meal/ diet can help strengthen Gemma's
mobility. The result of growing something can increase her sense of achievement which improves self-
esteem. When gardening, Gemma's gross motor skills (mobility skills) could increase as Gemma may
need to bend down or stretch when feeding the plants water or when planting seeds. Gemma can build
friendships based on interests that you have in common in gardening, reducing social isolation. Knitting
can relieve stress and tension as one is breathing in the fresh air; gardening usually happens outside.
Gemma’s intellectual skills would improve as there would be lots of knowledge to gain such as plant
names and how to grow and plant a seed.

Negatives: Gardening can put a strain on Gemma's body when stretching to water or seed plants. Falls,
difficulties with remembering instructions or steps involving gardening as she has rheumatoid arthritis
which affects her mobility. When planting the seeds, Gemma may forget how to do it as she has been
diagnosed with dementia which could lead to frustration, and this could make her feel as if she isn’t able
to do anything independently because of her condition. Gemma may have difficulties recognizing plants'
names or how much water they need. This could lead her to being agitated as she can’t garden like
others without forgetting things. This would affect her emotional health as she may get upset as she
feels that she can’t achieve something independently, lowering her self-esteem. Overall, this may lead
her to not participating in other activities and maybe even socially isolating herself as she may think that
others wouldn’t want to talk to her because of her condition and that she can’t do much independently.

Baking/ cooking:

Positives: This can help Gemma physically as baking involves using fine and gross motor skills such as
moving around the kitchen, whisking or stirring something in circular motions, chopping up food and
reaching for spices or utensils in the cupboards or side draw. This can help Gemma’s intellectual health
as she needs to remember certain ingredients to use when baking, this could help increase her memory.
Baking could also improve Gemma’s concentration and coordination as she would have to concentrate
on how much of something she would put in her food, and she would have to make sure she is stirring
her food properly using hand-eye coordination. This encourages Gemma to create what they want and
then allows them to enjoy themselves while eating it. Gemma would have a sense of achievement from
cooking/ baking something that she never thought she’d be able to do. This increases her self-esteem as
she would feel happy and proud of herself. Gemma would be learning new things e.g., names of spices
and seasonings. Cooking up a meal together with friends and family can create stronger interactions and
you can eat what you have made together. This is where you can discuss your day and other things with
each other.

Negatives: Gemma may forget that the oven is on causing a fire as she has dementia. This could put her
in danger, especially if she is not supervised. Sometimes when reaching or moving around the kitchen
for something Gemma may feel pain, or she may even slip and fall causing her to be injured. This could
affect her intellectually as she may not be able to remember certain ingredients. Also, there may be too
many things to focus on when baking/ cooking which may overwhelm her. This could affect her
emotionally as it may be stressful for her to remember so many things (to remember certain
ingredients). She may get frustrated as she may forget a few things, making her upset as her food may
not turn out the way she prefers it to be. This could affect her socially as she may get fixated and may
not want to participate in any other activities. This may lead to her socially isolating herself from others
as she may feel she can’t do anything, which may make her not want to even try to attempt doing
anything because of her lack of enthusiasm. She also may not want to socialize as she may feel that she
would get rejected by others for not being able to do things independently or because of her conditions.