Effects of cognitive training program on cognitive abilities and quality of life in elderly with suspected dementia

Abstract

Background: Dementia is most commonly found in the elderly, and related to deterioration in cognitive ability and quality of life. Therefore, prevention and delay dementia are necessary in early period especially on the elderly with suspected dementia, which in latency period and preclinical period.

 Objective: To study the effect of the cognitive training program for the elderly with suspected dementia on three cognitive abilities; attention, memory, and executive functions, and four areas of quality of life; physical, psychological, social relation, and environment.

 Methods: Ten elderly with suspected dementia as screened by the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA): Thai version, were purposively recruited. Participants were received the cognitive training in the program 3 times a weeks for 5 consecutive weeks. The outcome measures for assessing cognitive abilities were the Trial Making Test, the Thai Cognitive-Perceptual Test: Thai-CPT, and the Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Test: Geriatric Version (LOTCA-G).The outcome measure for evaluating quality of life was the Quality of Life Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test.

 Results: After receiving the cognitive training program, the participants had significant difference in the attention post-training scores comparing to pre-training scores. Memory and executive functions scores showed no significant difference between before and after training. For the quality of life, there was a significant difference in the scores of social relation and environment domains. However, there was no significant difference in the areas of physical and mental scores.

 Conclusion: The cognitive training program of this study might be effective to stimulate cognitive functions of the attention skill, and quality of life in the areas of social relation and environment.     

Bull Chiang Mai Assoc Med Sci 2015; 48(3): 182-191. Doi: 10.14456/jams.2015.18