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Although there is a growing evidence base for the value of psychosocial and arts-based strategies for enhancing well-being amongst adults living with dementia, relatively little attention has been paid to literature-based interventions. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of shared reading (SR) groups, a programme developed and implemented by The Reader Organisation, on quality of life for care home residents with mild/moderate dementia.

In total, 31 individuals were recruited from four care homes, which were randomly assigned to either reading-waiting groups (three months reading, followed by three months no reading) or waiting-reading groups (three months no reading, followed by three months reading). Quality of life was assessed by the DEMQOL-Proxy and psychopathological symptoms were assessed by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire.

Compared to the waiting condition, the positive effects of SR on quality of life were demonstrated at the commencement of the reading groups and were maintained once the activity ended. Low levels of baseline symptoms prevented analyses on whether the intervention impacted on the clinical signs of dementia.

Limitations included the small sample and lack of control for confounding variables.

The therapeutic potential of reading groups is discussed as a positive and practical intervention for older adults living with dementia.

This study aimed to assess the potential of the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) Scale in the prognosis of dementia in elderly subjects.

Dementia staging severity is clinically an essential task, so the authors used machine learning (ML) on the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features to locate and study the impact of various MR readings onto the classification of demented and nondemented patients. The authors used cross-sectional MRI data in this study. The designed ML approach established the role of CDR in the prognosis of inflicted and normal patients. Moreover, the pattern analysis indicated CDR as a strong cohort amongst the various attributes, with CDR to have a significant value of p < 0.01. The authors employed 20 ML classifiers.

The mean prediction accuracy varied with the various ML classifier used, with the bagging classifier (random forest as a base estimator) achieving the highest (93.67%). A series of ML analyses demonstrated that the model including the CDR score had better prediction accuracy and other related performance metrics.

The results suggest that the CDR score, a simple clinical measure, can be used in real community settings. It can be used to predict dementia progression with ML modeling.

Have you heard of cognitive stimulation therapy? The London School of Economics (LSE) has carried out research that shows it to be more cost effective than usual care when looking at the cognitive and quality of life benefits for a dementia sufferer. There is also evidence to suggest that it might be more cost effective than dementia medication, say proponents of this relatively unknown therapy. Joanne Knowles is one such advocate who believes in this therapy so much that she voluntarily campaigns to spread its message.

With the increase in the development of treatments that aim to improve the symptoms of dementia, more attention is focussed upon the effect that these treatments have on the patient's quality of life (QoL). There are specific challenges to be met in measuring the QoL of a patient who is in the later, more severe, stages of dementia. The main challenge to be met is whether the QoL measure can measure QoL in an individual who is unable to provide a subjective report of his or her own QoL. This paper presents five QoL measures that have been designed or used to measure the QoL of patients with severe dementia who are unable to provide self‐reports and to examine whether these measures are a valid and reliable means of assessing QoL in patients with severe dementia. It was found that all of the QoL measures have moderate to good reliability and validity, but the question still remains that without a subjective account, such as a self‐report from the person with dementia, is the outcome of these QoL measures a true reflection of the patient's QoL?

The purpose of this paper is to critically reflect on the global dementia prevention views of the Japanese leaders at both the Japanese Young Leaders in Dementia Event and the Japanese Global Legacy Against Dementia event, from a Canadian perspective.

This paper undertook a global comparison of the discussion and recommendations from both the Japanese Young Leader Event and the satellite Global Dementia Legacy Event.

The paper provides insights about the cultural and intergenerational differences in both the Japanese solutions compared to the Canadian solutions.

The authors encourage leaders involved in global prevention dementia discussions to remember the importance of context, in regards to both cultural and intergenerational collaborations, in the search for global dementia solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the relationship between self-reported levels of acute stress, perceived social support and interactions with robot animals in an academic library. The authors hypothesized that (1) participants would report lower stress and higher positive affect after their interaction with a robot support animal and (2) perceived supportiveness of the robot support animal would positively predict the amount of stress reduction the participants reported.

The authors hosted a robot petting zoo in the main library at a mid-sized Midwestern university during finals week. Participants were asked to rate their stress level prior to interacting with the robot pets (T1) and then after their interaction they were asked about their current stress level and the perceived supportiveness of the robot animal (T2). Data were analyzed using paired samples t-tests for the pretest and post-test scores.

The results showed a significant decrease in acute stress between T1 to T2, as well as a significant increase in happiness and relaxation. Participants reported feeling less bored and less tired after their interactions with the robot support animals. The findings also reveal that the degree to which individuals experienced a reduction in stress was influenced by their perceptions of the robot animal's supportiveness. Libraries could consider using robot pet therapy.

This study reveals the benefit of robot support animals to reduce stress and increase happiness of those experiencing acute stress in a library setting. The authors also introduce the concept of socially supportive contact as a type of unidirectional social support.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the relation between quality of life (QoL), mental illness, challenging behaviour and institutionalisation in an adult population with intellectual disabilities (ID).

The study assessed the QoL and its conditioning factors in 142 subjects with different degrees of ID. The GENCAT and Quality of Life in Late Stage Dementia scale were used to evaluate QoL, the Psychiatric Assessment Schedule for Adults with Developmental Disability and Diagnostic Assessment for the Severely Handicapped-II scale to assess mental illness and the Inventory for Client and aetiology Planning scale to assess challenging behaviour.

Individuals who live in residential care homes were found to have significantly impaired QoL (<0.001). Individuals with challenging behaviour presented significantly lower QoL, regardless of ID aethiology and degree, while psychiatric disorders did not seem to have a direct influence on individual QoL.

This paper provides new insight into the importance of challenging behaviour and psychiatric disorders in the QoL of individuals with ID.

This study aims to evaluate the dementia assessment and diagnosis care provided to adults with intellectual disability. The authors selected recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) standards which could be evidenced in clinical notes and aimed to identify characteristics which may be associated with improved adherence to these recommendations.

The study population was adults with an intellectual disability who were diagnosed with dementia between January 2019 and December 2022 by a UK-based intellectual disability service. Data to demonstrate adherence to selected recommendations and demographic and clinical characteristics were extracted from electronic patient records.

The authors identified 41 individuals. A mean of six of the eight recommendations were adhered to. There was low adherence with structural imaging to support dementia subtype diagnosis (9 individuals, 22%). This may be linked with the low percentage of people diagnosed with vascular dementia (1 individual, 2%) despite a national figure of 20%. No demographic or clinical characteristics were associated with level of adherence recorded. The authors found incomplete recording of diagnostic clinical coding in electronic patient records. This may disadvantage this population, as they cannot be readily identified for post diagnostic support or resource allocation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine adherence to these NICE guidelines in this population.

Through a literature review, this article aims to identify the needs of those people with dementia who wish to remain at home, and those of their carers. It goes on to model a range of services that can be linked together to meet these needs comprehensively.

The National Dementia Strategy is a challenge to commissioners of health and local government services to knit a thick pullover out of thin wool. The thick pullover is necessary because dementia is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that erodes the capacity of those affected by it, and absorbs increasing resources as it progresses. The thin wool is the limited evidence that investment in new kinds of services will produce benefits for people with dementia and their carers, while being affordable. This paper reviews the scale of the problem of dementia and its likely impact on services in the near future. It discusses some of the key recommendations of the National Dementia Strategy and explores debates about dementia advisors, economic modelling of innovative dementia services and the need for widespread training in the recognition of and response to dementia. Finally, it offers an approach to changing professional practice that is based on adult learning principles and workplace‐based reflective practice.