Narrative review: recent advances in doll therapy for Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a severe neurodegenerative disease which impacts the quality of life in elderly patients and imposes a significant burden to families and caregivers. The prolonged life expectancy and rapidly increasing world population significantly increased the morbidity. Although it has been widely reported that the aggregation of Beta amyloid and neurofilaments is the most significant pathological change.Currently, there is no effective drug therapy for AD, and the potential risks of pharmacotherapy remain concerns. This article reviews the recent research on Doll therapy (DT), a widely used non-drug therapy on AD patients, especially its clinical effectiveness and precautions in treating AD, with an attempt to further alleviate the mental symptoms and improve the health status of AD patients. Thus, nonpharmacological treatments of AD have become an area of intense research interest in recent years. DT is a person-centered therapy that can improve both the mental and cognitive status and the quality of life in AD patients.Although there remains ethical controversy about the DT on AD patients, its positive effect has been proved.Moreover, a standards manual is required to stipulate the range of application, the time course for treatment and withdraw the toy from the patients.

Effect of Doll Therapy in Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia: A Systematic Review

“…Several authors have found benefits in the use of DT, observing a decrease of negative behaviors such as agitation, aggressiveness, or erratic wandering as well as an increase in communication with the environment and independence in daily life [ 10 , 11 , 20 ]. Systematic revisions in this regard conclude that DT has positive effects on the person with dementia as long as it improves communication with the environment, alleviates the SCPD, and improves quality of life [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Mitchell [ 24 , 25 ] discovered an increase in commitment levels, communication, and reduction of anguish episodes in addition to the potential of DT to improve independence in daily life.…”

Doll therapy opens up the inner world of dementia patients, but we don't know what they really think

“…Brittain et al [2] proposed that BPSD might indicate that the patient perceives a threat that needs managing. Doll therapy (DT) is a nonpharmacological intervention, that aims at reducing the level of anxiety and agitation in patients affected by moderate to severe dementia, mostly in nursing homes [3]. Our previous studies have also found that DT can improve the wandering symptoms of dementia patients [4,5], indicating that DT can help dementia patients become calmer and further adapt to the surrounding environment, thus improving wandering.…”