How valuable are ecopsychosocial interventions in prevention and treatment of dementia?

Abstract

Dementia is a disorder that arouses major public health interest and concern. It has been projected that there will be a global increase in the number of people affected from about 46.8million in 2018 to 131million by 2050; global cost of care for 2015 was put at US$818 billion (Prince et al., 2015). Consequently, such development will lead to tremendous social and financial cost on family and society. Currently, there is no cure for dementia and that has led to increased research activities on prevention strategies, which often has to start with a number of midlife activities. These include regular exercise, diet, treatment of cardiovascular risk factors, and social and educational stimulation through life.

Positive psychiatry comes of age

“…These papers report stability of spirituality in older adults followed over a five-year period (Bailly et al, 2018), response of hospice patients to the diagnosis of terminal illness by cultivating wisdom through a balance between active acceptance of the current situation and continued push for a galvanized growth (Montross-Thomas et al, 2018), and significant contributions of close friends and leisure activity engagement to better cognitive performance in old age (Ihle et al, 2018). There are accompanying commentaries (Baiyewu, 2018;Forlenza and Vallada, 2018;Pachana and Mitchell, 2018) from Nigeria, Brazil, and Australia, respectively, which discuss both limitations and implications of those studies.…”