Alzheimer rehabilitation by students: Interventions and outcomes

Abstract

This article advocates proactive Alzheimer treatment, describes rehab interventions implemented by students, and reports positive first year outcomes for 11 mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients who experienced these interventions in a longitudinal Alzheimer rehabilitation research programme. Students supervised physical fitness training and volunteer work sessions for all participants and administered specific memory and language stimulation exercises to 7 of them (experimental group). Outcomes were measured by standardised and project-related tests before and after two semesters (about 28 weeks) of participation. It was hypothesised that (1) the experimental group would outperform the control group at post-testing on standardised and project-specific cognitive and language measures; that both the experimental and control group would (2) maintain or improve the quality of their spontaneous discourse, (3) improve on measures of mood, and (4) improve on measures of physical fitness. Hypothesis 1 was only partially supported. The experimental group improved significantly from pre-to post-test on two measures, substantially on one measure, and showed no change on eleven measures. The control group declined significantly on three measures and showed no change on eleven measures. However, between group differences were only significant on one measure. Hypotheses 2, 3, and 4 were supported. The major conclusion was that: multi-modal interventions by students can temporarily maintain or improve cognitive, language, social, and physical functioning of Alzheimer's patients.Correspondenc e should be sent to Sharon Arkin,

Effects of four years of exercise, language, and social interventions on Alzheimer discourse

“…First year outcomes on all of the standardized tests have been reported elsewhere (Arkin, 2001). Baseline and four annual MMSE and ABCD scores (Arkin, in press).…”

“…Sessions alternated between supervised volunteer service at community agencies and cultural or recreational activities (Arkin, 2001). Students were instructed to incorporate 20 min of walking into the community activity sessions, to bring the frequency of aerobic activity to the usually recommended three times per week.…”

“…Clinicians need to develop new cost-effective ways to deliver a wider range of services in long-term care settings. They also need to stay abreast of empirical evidence about the efficacy and effectiveness of short-term, long-term, direct, and indirect interventions to maintain and/or improve function and quality of life in dementia patients (e.g., Arkin, 2001;Camp, Foss, O'Hanlon, & Stevens, 1995;Clare et al, 2000;Hopper, 2001;Mahendra, 2001;Moss, Polignano, White, Minichiello, & Sunderland, 2002, and other articles in this issue). Furthermore, clinicians need to participate in collaborative research efforts to fill gaps in the research concerning non-pharmacological interventions.…”

Physical activity and behaviour in dementia

“…Four of the five within-subjects exercise studies showed a positive effect on mood (Arkin, 1999(Arkin, , 2001(Arkin, , 2003Heyn, 2003). In the fifth study (Rolland et al, 2000) the exercise intervention was implemented by caregivers and led to a decrease of behavioural problems, but families themselves reported no reduction on their perceived burden.…”

The Cognitive Effects of Wearable Cameras in Mild Alzheimer Disease – An Experimental Study

“…We selected tasks and techniques where there was published evidence of memory improvement in brain injury. In short, we included training and practice in the following domains: exercises to improve motivation [32], attention [33], working memory [34], autobiographical and episodic memory [35,36,37,38] semantic memory [39] and implicit memory [40]. An adapted motivational interview was constructed for the start of the sessions [32] (that included a set of open questions regarding the actual interest of the participants in taking part in the study, expectations about possible gains to be obtained in the study, and also questions regarding the prior existence of self-initiated activities to stimulate the brain -such as crosswords, Sudoku, reading, etc.)…”