reality orientation
an intervention originally developed for the rehabilitation of cognitively impaired veterans and now often used for individuals with dementia to decrease their confusion, increase their awareness of time, place, and self, and improve their overall cognitive, behavioral, and social functioning. It is usually applied in residential settings (e.g., long-term care facilities), with practitioners continually reminding the individual who and where he or she is; what day, month, or year it is; and what is happening at a given moment in time or is about to take place. Clocks, calendars, newspapers, family photographs, and the like are often used to facilitate this process.