Effectiveness of Occupational Therapy Interventions to Enhance Occupational Performance for Adults With Alzheimer's Disease and Related Major Neurocognitive Disorders: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Occupational therapy practitioners should integrate daily occupations, physical exercise, and error-reduction techniques into the daily routine of adults with AD to enhance occupational performance and delay functional decline. Future research should focus on establishing consensus on types and dosage of exercise and cognitive interventions.

Occupational Therapy Interventions for People With Alzheimer’s Disease

“…Tamara reviewed the evidence from the September/ October 2017 issue of the American Journal of Occupational Therapy (Jensen & Padilla, 2017;Smallfield & Syrovatla-Keckenlaible, 2017) and also read the intervention recommendations with strong evidence from the Occupational Therapy Practice Guidelines for Adults With Alzheimer's Disease and Related Major Neurocognitive Disorders (Piersol & Jensen, 2017). She was encouraged to find strong evidence that rooms designed consistent with the intended purpose, as is found in home environments, improved behaviors of people with AD because she had often anecdotally noted this as a benefit for her clients receiving therapy in the home.…”

Supporting Adults With Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Major Neurocognitive Disorders and Their Caregivers: Effective Occupational Therapy Interventions

“…In their review of literature describing interventions designed to establish, modify, and maintain occupations for adults with AD and related major NCDs, Smallfield and Heckenlaible (2017) found strong support for occupation-based interventions to enhance the performance of daily activities. They also found strong evidence supporting routine use of physical exercise programs to enhance occupational performance and delay functional decline, use of errorless learning strategies to maintain the performance of activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental ADLs, and use of multicomponent interventions for overall QOL.…”

Targeting Function at Home in Older Adults: How to Promote and Disseminate Promising Models of Care?

“…Although the CAPABLE model by design employs occupational therapists to treat older adults with physical disability who are cognitively intact, occupational therapists have been core members of in‐home, multidisciplinary teams for older adults with dementia and their family caregivers in successful randomized trials . Productive aging is a rapidly growing area of research and practice in the occupational therapy profession, and many studies have demonstrated the value of interventions with older adults when occupational therapists are core team members . Stronger, more‐targeted collaborations between geriatricians and occupational therapists would help accelerate dissemination of successful evidence‐based in‐home care models focused on function of older adults with or without neurocognitive impairment.…”