Patients with moderate Alzheimer’s disease engage in verbal reminiscence with the support of a computer-aided program: a pilot study

Abstract

This study focused on the assessment of a program recently developed for helping patients with moderate Alzheimer’s disease engage in computer-mediated verbal reminiscence (Lancioni et al., 2014a). Sixteen participants were involved in the study. Six of them used the original program version with the computer showing a virtual partner posing questions and providing attention and guidance. The other 10 used a slightly modified program version with the computer presenting photos and videos and providing encouragements to talk as well as attention and guidance. Participants were exposed to brief program sessions individually. The results showed that 15 participants (five of those using the first version and all of those using the second version) had a clear and lasting increase in verbal engagement/reminiscence during the intervention sessions with the program. Those 15 participants had mean percentages of intervals with verbal engagement/reminiscence below 10 during baseline and between about 45 and 75 during the intervention. The results’ implications and the need for new research were discussed.

Longinos/Longinas: Towards Smart, Unified Working and Living Environments for the 70 to 90+

“…Studies on small samples show that the introduction of ad-hoc ICT tools could improve the quality of life of older people and increasing the length of time for independent living. Some researchers have investigated new solutions for cognitive assistance in the last three years (serious games and robotic systems) [5][6][7][8][9]. These researches concentrated on exploiting software platforms allowing the support of new assistive tools that are less expensive and more accessible and could be used as a re-education tool helping to slow the decline of people with CI.…”

Technology-Aided Programs to Support Positive Verbal and Physical Engagement in Persons with Moderate or Severe Alzheimer’s Disease

“…The use of a simple computer-aided program to help the participants reminisce events of their life and increase their positive verbal engagement (as pursued in this study) seemed a practical example of such strategy. Participants had expressed their willingness to be involved in the program and staff and families supported it (Lancioni et al, 2015a ). Participants had not been asked to sign a formal consent for their involvement in the study, as they were not considered capable of reading a complex text and/or writing.…”

“…In each of these intervention areas, technology-aided programs were developed and assessed with promising results. For example, Lancioni et al ( 2014b , 2015a ) reported encouraging results with a technology-aided program set up to foster positive verbal engagement/reminiscence in persons with moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The program relied on the presentation of: (a) images of relevant people/events together with requests to talk about them or a virtual partner asking questions; (b) approval for verbal engagement; and (c) reminders (prompts) to seek new images/questions (see also Yasuda et al, 2009 ; Kuwahara et al, 2010 ; Lazar et al, 2014 ).…”

“…The new program version (a) presented images of relevant people/events with requests to talk about them and approval and reminders to seek new images, and (b) monitored the participants’ verbal behavior via a voice-detecting sensor (Lancioni et al, 2014a ). Such monitoring allowed computer approval and reminders to be consistent with the participants’ behavior (i.e., to occur during and in the absence of verbal engagement, respectively, rather than at preset intervals; see Lancioni et al, 2014b , 2015a ). The view was that the use of monitoring would preserve or even strengthen the effectiveness of the original program in fostering positive verbal engagement while increasing the level of respect for the participants and their self-determination (Pierce and Cheney, 2008 ).…”

“… Pilot studies using technology-aided programs to promote verbal reminiscence and mild physical activity (i.e., positive forms of engagement) in persons with moderate or severe Alzheimer’s disease have provided promising results (Lancioni et al, 2015a , b ). The present two studies were aimed at upgrading and/or extending the assessment of those programs.…”