Supporting everyday activities in dementia: An intervention study

Abstract

SUMMARYThe efficacy of an intervention programme designed to support performance in activities of daily living was investigated in four patients with dementia at different levels of severity of impairment. Important features ofthe programme included that (a) task conditions should be highly supportive, (b) the importance of episodic and semantic memory skills for successful performance should be minimized, (c) an acceptable performance level should be possible to achieve using skills that are relatively well preserved in the disease, and (d) factors related to patients' motivation and habits should be taken into account. Performance gains were evaluated using the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills instrument. Results showed intervention-related gains in three patients. One of these patients maintained performance gains when environmental guidance (eg signs) was withdrawn, whereas the other two required environmental guidance in order to exhibit gains. The overall pattern of results suggests that this form of intervention related to everyday functioning in dementia is worthy of further empirical attention.

Memory rehabilitation in Alzheimer's disease: a review of progress

“…Several studies have focussed on the ef®cacy of such procedural memory stimulation programmes. Josephsson et al (1993) demonstrated that performance of three out of four patients with moderate to severe dementia can be signi®cantly improved from baseline when environmental support is provided. These performance gains can be maintained even when support is no longer present, at least in the moderate stage of the disease (case OB).…”

Psychosocial interventions in dementia care research: The INTERDEM manifesto

“…RCTs of intervention for people with dementia were hard to identify, with just one study of cognitive stimulation noted in France (Breuil et al, 1994). However, controlled investigations of reality orientation in Italy (Zanetti et al, 1995) and memory clinicbased multi-component intervention in the UK (Moniz-Cook, Agar, Gibson, Win, & Wang, 1998) as well as single case studies of cognitive rehabilitation in Italy and Sweden (Josephsson et al, 1993;Zanetti et al, 1997) demonstrated that promising interventions were emerging.…”

Application of Cognitive Rehabilitation Theory to the Development of Smart Prompting Technologies

“…Cognitive rehabilitation has been found successful in teaching individuals with dementia [22]- [24] and MCI [25] to learn or re-learn information, maintain information over time, apply information to everyday contexts, develop strategies to compensate for memory impairment, and adjust the environment to reduce memory demands [26]- [28]. Cognitive rehabilitation theory (CRT) is multi-dimensional and emphasizes the importance of an individual's personal context, environmental context, and social system [29].…”