Feasibility and Effectiveness of a Biography-Based Physical Activity Intervention in Institutionalized People With Dementia: Quantitative and Qualitative Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

The objective of this multicenter randomized controlled trial was to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of a physical activity intervention for institutionalized people with dementia, individualized by capacity and biography. The intervention group (n = 34; age: mean = 86.09 years; 79.40% female; mean Mini-Mental State Examination value = 18.59) participated in a multicomponent training program, which included daily activities, dancing, gardening, and sports/games, twice weekly for 3 months. The control group (n = 29; age: mean = 86.34 years; 75.90% female; mean Mini-Mental State Examination value = 19.90) received standard care. Feasibility was evaluated by means of focus groups and feedback questionnaires. Functional performance (Short Physical Performance Battery and Timed Up and Go Test), activities of daily living, and gait were outcomes for effectiveness. A high adherence rate (80.46%) and uniformly positive feedback indicate that the piloted training program is feasible. The results show preliminary effectiveness on functional performance (Short Physical Performance Battery mean t0 = 3.15; mean t1 = 4.50; p = .006) and gait (e.g., velocity mean t0 = 46.97; mean t1 = 58.04; p = .007).

Feasible Intervention through Simple Exercise for Risk of Falls in Dementia Patients: A Pilot Study

“…We considered it important to include other types of dementia because exercise has been proven to be beneficial not only in AD [14,15,18,[21][22][23][24][25]. The mean age of the patients (74.2 years old in the intervention group) is in agreement with other studies that have reported a mean age of participants lower than 80 [14,17,[19][20][21]26], while we also found others with that greater than 80 [16,18,[22][23][24][25][27][28][29].…”

“…Other assessment tools have also been used to measure the risk of falls and physical capacities in people with dementia: the Berg balance scale [15,21], number of falls in a period of time [19,28], frailty and injuries: cooperative studies of intervention techniques-subtest 4 (FICSIT-4) [18,27], the 6 min walk test [18,27], and the functional independence measure (FIM) [19,20]. In our study, we also used valid and reliable instruments to measure the risk of falls and functional capacities, in agreement with other studies that used TMT [21] and SPPB [16,20,27,29] in their assessments.…”

“…Regarding the assessment of functional ability, many studies have included the timed up and go test [17,18,21,26,29]. Other assessment tools have also been used to measure the risk of falls and physical capacities in people with dementia: the Berg balance scale [15,21], number of falls in a period of time [19,28], frailty and injuries: cooperative studies of intervention techniques-subtest 4 (FICSIT-4) [18,27], the 6 min walk test [18,27], and the functional independence measure (FIM) [19,20].…”

“…Day care centers are locations used to perform exercise programs for people with dementia [15,19,23] because they can spend a few hours a day doing activities aimed at maintaining their cognitive and physical abilities. Other studies' interventions took place in nursing homes [18,23,[27][28][29] or at home [14,16,17,20,26]. In our study, exercise group sessions with 10 people with dementia were guided by one physiotherapist for 45-50 min, 5 days a week.…”

“…Our study included a 5-week period of intervention. This may be a short period compared to other studies with interventions of 9 weeks [18,21], 10 weeks [24], 12 weeks [14,15,22,25,29], 16 weeks [28], 20 weeks [17,26], 24 weeks [23,27], or 1 year [16,19,20]. However, we aimed to analyze the effect of a simple and brief intervention on the risk of falls in the elderly with dementia.…”