Because the elderly experience a variety of losses, they tend to suffer from difficulties in mental health
domains. Depression has remained a major mental health problem among old persons. Old persons with
less social contacts are likely to experience more depression, and the residential elderly with dementia
(RED) belong to those with less social contacts. Due to the high level of social exclusion and loneliness,
the RED are highly likely to suffer from depression. And depression is known to be a probable
determinant of dementia. Thus in order to enhance quality of life of the RED and prevent more
deterioration of their dementia, reduction of their depressions deserves a special attention. On the other
hand, according to previous studies, reminiscence activities are effective in reducing the depression experienced by the RED. Therefore by employing a non-equivalent control group design where the 34 RED
in Daejeon Metropolitan City were assigned to control and experimental groups respectively, this study
examined the effect of reminiscence activities on the reduction of their depression. The results of this study
showed that reminiscence activities had a positive effect on the reduction of depression. On the basis of
these results, this study presented some suggestions and limitations as well.