PHYSICAL THERAPY PROGRAM IMPLEMEN-TATION RESULTS ON THE INDICATORS OF ELDERLY PEOPLE WITH ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Dementia is a brain injury due to various traumas and diseases that leads to acquired persistent impairments of cognitive and motor functions. As a result, the person loses the opportunity to continue to perform professional, social and household duties, to live a fulfilling life. One of the degenerative neurological diseases that causes dementia is Alzheimer's disease. For the purpose of effective rehabilitation intervention aimed at cognitive stimulation, maintaining the level of physical activity and improving the quality of life of patients, professional assistance of specialists of a multidisciplinary team is needed, where one of the leading places belongs to specialists in physical therapy and ergotherapy. Physical therapy, ergotherapy of the elderly with Alzheimer's disease should be aimed at increasing their level of physical activity, development of major physical qualities (general endurance, muscle strength, coordina-tion and balance, fine motor skills), and preservation of everyday motor skills and improvement of psycho-emotional state. For this purpose, a comprehensive pro-gram of physical therapy, ergotherapy, which included morning hygienic gymnastics, medical gymnastics, and occupational therapy, was developed, scientifically sub-stantiated and implemented in the activities of the Municipal Institution of the Sumy Regional Council «Lebedyn Psychoneurological Centre». The studies were conducted during October-March 2018-2019. The study involved 14 elderly people aged 65 to 66 years with Alzheimer's disease, including 9 women and 5 men. The implementation of the author's program took place within 5 months, which was conditioned by scientifically substantiated data that the improvement of the quality of life of persons with Alzheimer's disease can only improve significantly after 3-6 months after the beginning of rehabilitation activities. The following research methods were used in the organization and conduct of the study: content analysis of medical records (results of objective studies, survey reports, observation sheets, laboratory test results) pedagogical - establishment and formation of experiments, observations, medical and biological methods. The latter included assessment of orientation, memory, attention, ability to count, language, and visual perception of the-matic patients were used on the MMSE scale or the «Short Scale of Mental Status Assessment». The PAINAD (Severe Dementia Pain Scale) was used for objective pain assessment; Functional mobility assess-ment in elderly patients was used to determine the level of motor activity of the elderly, including the estimation of movement parameters, stability and balance; psycho-logical and pedagogical: conversations; methods of mathematical statistics. The effectiveness of the proposed physical therapy program was confirmed by significant positive changes in PAINAD pain scores, assessment of movement parameters, coordination abilities: stability and balance, arm muscle strength on the Scale of motor activity in the elderly. Observation of patients at the end of the study showed an improvement in the general well-being of persons with Alzheimer's disease and an increase in their emotional state. There were no significant changes only in the indicators of the Short Scale of Mental Status Test (or the MMSE (Mini-mental State Examination) scale, which is attributed to the lack of systematic cognitive rehabilitation classes and the irreversibility of the disease process itself.