Effect of a Cognitive Stimulation Therapy Program on Cognitive Ability of Demented Older Adults

Abstract

C ognition, the ability to process thought, entails perceiving, saving, recalling and using information. The World Health Organization (WHO) lists components of cognition as language, thought, memory, executive function, judgment, attention, and perception. 1 Preserving multidimensional cognitive structure allows older adults to maintain social connectedness, an ongoing sense of purpose, the ability to function independently, functional recovery from illness or injury, and the ability to cope with residual functional deficits. 2 The brain may be able to achieve new or regain lost functions by changing its internal connectivity network. Due to interaction between neuronal plasticity and cognitive plasticity, the aging brain can reorganize cognitive demand or cognitive plasticity as needed. 3 However, cognitive ability decline does occur, and includes memory disorders, neuropsychiatric symptoms, orientation disorder, aphasia, apraxia, agnosia, executive function disorder, and personality change. 4,5 Dementia is a group of symptoms characterized by significant cognitive decline from a previous level of performance in one or more cognitive domains, such as learning and memory, language, executive function, complex attention, perceptual-motor, and social cognition. 6,7 Dementia results from a variety of diseases and injuries that primarily or secondarily affect the brain; it is chronic and progressive. 1 Globally, over 47 million people have dementia and over 7 million new cases are recorded every year. 8,9 The prevalence of dementia is much greater in Abstract OBJECTIVES: This quasi-experimental study aimed to examine the effect of a cognitive stimulation therapy (CST) program on the cognitive ability of demented older adults. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Two nursing homes were randomly assigned as experimental and control groups. Simple random sampling technique was used to recruit 27 demented older adults from each nursing home. The experimental group received a CST program three times per week for 5 weeks. The control group received usual care. Data collection was performed from March to May, 2018. Instruments used were a Demographic Questionnaire, Mini Mental State Examination (Indonesian version), and the CST program adapted for the culture of East Java, Indonesia. Descriptive statistics were calculated for data analysis. RESULTS: Findings revealed an effect of CST on cognitive ability of demented older adults. The experimental and control groups were not significantly different before the intervention (p = 0.161). After the CST program, the mean cognitive ability score in the experimental group was significantly higher than before the program (p < 0.001). After the CST program, the mean cognitive ability score in the experimental group was significantly higher than in the control group (p < 0.001). The mean cognitive ability score for the control group did not differ significantly between pre-test and post-test (p = 0.058). CONCLUSION: CST improves cognitive ability in demented older adults. Nurses and health care tea...

Effect of Cognitive Stimulation Therapy versus Reminiscence Therapy on Cognitive and Psychological Outcomes in Older Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Quasi-Experimental Study

“… Arabic version of tool 4 (The Satisfaction with Life Scale) was used.  The instructional materials of CST sessions (5,14,15,17,34) and RT sessions (19,35) were prepared by the researchers based on the recent evidences. To make its material easier for the participants to understand, it was written in straightforward Arabic and included colorful activities.…”

Revisión sistemática sobre la influencia de la reserva cognitiva en la demencia y en la eficacia de la terapia de estimulación cognitiva

“…Sin embargo, estos resultados deben tomarse con cautela ya que existe una escasa bibliografía actualizada. Los estudios existentes ponen de manifiesto la influencia de los factores de la RC en la influencia de la TEC (Sipollo et al, 2019). En esta línea, diferentes estudios han indicado la correlación positiva entre la RC y la intervención con TEC (Espert-Tortajada & Villalba-Agustín, 2014;Tucker & Stern, 2011;Tardif & Simard, 2011).…”