Can mild cognitive impairment with depression be improved merely by exercises of recall memories accompanying everyday conversation? A longitudinal study 2016-2019
Quality in Ageing and Older Adults
ISSN: 1471-7794
Article publication date: 8 April 2022
Issue publication date: 9 June 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to find out a simple cognitive intervention method to use MCI and suffering people with depression. As the elderly society increases around the world, the number of elderly people with diseases and dementia is increasing rapidly. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a pre-stage to dementia, is a critical treatment time to slow disease progression. However, there is currently no appropriate medication. Furthermore, MCI patients with depression are more difficult to treat.
Design/methodology/approach
To overcome these problems, the authors confirmed improvements and delayed effects in MCI patients in this study for three years through cognitive intervention, demonstrating its effectiveness. Cognitive interventions were conducted for memory retrieval and steadily stimulated the brain by performing tasks to solve problems during daily conversations.
Findings
As a result, the intervention group retained mini-mental state examination and Montreal cognitive assessment scores on the domains of cognitive function and also instrumental activities of daily living in the domain of motion compared to the non-intervention group. Moreover, significant improvements in geriatric depression scales-15 and quality-of-life scales enabled the patients to maintain stable living compared to before the intervention. In addition, the intervention group showed a change in patterns that allowed them to voluntarily devote time to going out at the end of the study.
Research limitations/implications
This study was originally planned to compare the rates of transmission from MCI to dementia by tracking over five years (2016–2021). However, due to the impact of COVID-19, which began to spread around the world in 2020, further face-to-face visits and cognitive intervention became impossible. Thus, only half of the data in the existing plans were collected. Although it is difficult to present accurate results for the rate of transmission from MCI to dementia, the tendency was confirmed, indicating sufficient implications as an intervention.
Originality/value
This study was originally planned to compare the rates of transmission from MCI to dementia by tracking three years (2016–2019). The authors had studied for long-term effect.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was partially supported by The Association of Japanese Elderly Care. The authors thank Dr Peter Jameson and Dr Toda Yamaguchi who provided insight and expertise. The authors would also like thank anonymous reviewers for their so-called insights.
Declaration of conflicting interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Author Contributions: All the authors contributed equally to the conceptualization, design of this manuscript. Gong collected the literature, created the figures and wrote the manuscript mainly. Sato offered clinical insight to answer the reviews’ comment and feedback throughout the writing process.
Citation
Gong, C.-H. and Sato, S. (2022), "Can mild cognitive impairment with depression be improved merely by exercises of recall memories accompanying everyday conversation? A longitudinal study 2016-2019", Quality in Ageing and Older Adults, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 26-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/QAOA-09-2021-0069
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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