Introduction Reminiscence therapy, using life story books, is a non-pharmacological treatment and helps promote psychosocial benefits in people with dementia. This research thus aimed to determine the effects of life story books among participants with dementia of different severities. Method The experimental group ( n = 36) underwent three semi-structured interviews over 10 weeks. After a 2-week life story books-production interval, the experimental group received the intervention over 4 weeks, five times weekly. The following 12 weeks were the follow-up period. The control group ( n = 30) underwent the first and last assessments, with a 6-month interval, while receiving their usual care services. Results Participants’ cognitive functioning was mostly maintained at follow-up in the experimental group, but significantly declined in the control group. The experimental group showed no significant change in cognition among participants with severe dementia during all periods, assessed using the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia, and the caregivers’ burden decreased significantly from before to after the intervention. Conclusion These results demonstrate that life story book interventions are an effective tool in improving the relationship between caregivers and people with dementia, and could help people with dementia maintain cognitive function, even those with severe dementia.

Objective: This study aimed to identify the difficulties experienced by occupational therapists during cancer rehabilitation, and explore potential solutions. Methods: Eighteen occupational therapists with experience in cancer rehabilitation were interviewed, and the interviews were analyzed and synthesized using qualitative research methods. Results: A total of 206 primary, 60 secondary, and 12 tertiary category themes were identified. These themes were discussed from three perspectives: "Related to the practice of occupational therapy," "Related to occupational therapists themselves," and "The environment surrounding the occupational therapist." Conclusions: Occupational therapists in Japan have multiple difficulties in cancer rehabilitation because few of them specialize in cancer. Therefore, their sense of difficulties could be reduced by improving their pre and post graduate education as well as for nurses who had similar problems.

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly deprived people with dementia living in institutions and hospitals from contact opportunities with their families. It has also made it difficult for people with dementia living in the community to access the healthcare system which has resulted in a deterioration in the cognitive function and mental health status of people with dementia. In response, online implementation of cognitive stimulation therapy has been attempted and although it was found to be feasible, its effectiveness was not reported. A previous study indicated that the effectiveness of cognitive stimulation was significantly improved by the simulated presence of family members which prompted us to investigate online cognitive stimulation with remote family participation. This single case study compared the results of a digital life storybook intervention with online family participation to those of face-to-face sessions conducted without a participating family member. The online intervention was delivered under the same conditions as face-to-face (twice a week, 30 minutes per session, for four weeks) using the same life storybook. The results showed that both online cognitive stimulation with family participation and face-to-face intervention improved depression and apathy, caregiver distress, and cognitive function scores in Mini-Mental State Examination. This suggests that remote participation by family members could enhance the effectiveness of individualized cognitive stimulation and be a promising intervention to overcome accessibility issues imposed by Covid 19 restrictions as well as uneven distribution of health and care services.

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