Facilitating participation in an online dance class for people living with dementia

Background: Care workers practice different approaches to facilitating social participation and managing (non-)responsiveness in activities for people living with dementia. Utilizing an on-screen dance activity in a foreign language, carers in this study draw on multimodal resources and shift their footings in participation frameworks to demonstrate and reformulate expectations in pursuit of responses. Method: Data were collected as part of a test pilot for a dance program designed for people with cognitive and physical challenges. The program was remotely delivered from Canada to a private, assisted living facility in Finland during the COVID-19 pandemic. Video recordings of five consecutive weekly dance classes were transcribed and analyzed using an ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA) approach to multimodal interaction, looking at directive-response sequences. Results: Our preliminary results explore how co-present facilitators encouraged participation of a non-responsive participant through embodied directives in three ways: through demonstrations and reformulations in co-participation; through repetition and emphasis in response to non-compliance; and through a subsequent proposal of a change in the interactional frame. Discussion/conclusion: There are various recipient-designed ways in which care workers facilitate participation in on-screen arts-based programs, including how they address non-compliance.