- NKU doctoral students are researching a largely under-used dementia therapy in U.S.
- The therapy works by challenging patients to use cognitive skills in an effort to slow cognitive decline as long as possible.
- Existing literature on the therapy suggests there are some short-term benefits, but more study is needed.
A group of occupational therapy students at Northern Kentucky University is researching a form of occupational therapy for patients with dementia called cognitive stimulation therapy, which has been arguably underutilized in the United States.
“It’s a standard care over in the UK,” said occupational therapy doctoral student Jenna Range, who designed the patient activities in the group’s research study. “Anybody who has dementia, they usually go through this type of treatment.”
In addition to being only sporadically practiced in the United States, Range and her colleagues said, their study is notable in that NKU is not usually known as a research institution. The researchers had completed the experimental portion of their study when they spoke with LINK nky in December and had already begun the peer review process.
Dementia is not a single disease but rather a set of symptoms, like cognitive decline, memory trouble and confusion, indicative of some underlying medical pathology. The most well-known of these pathologies is Alzheimer’s Disease, which accounts for about 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Cognitive stimulation therapy, or CST, is specifically designed for patients with mild to moderate dementia.
Many forms of dementia are progressive (meaning they worsen over time), and Range said that CST isn’t effective against more severe forms of dementia, which require different kinds of therapies.
Still, the therapy purports to aid those with mild and moderate dementia in maintaining well-being and quality of life. Various professionals can be trained to administer it, not only occupational therapists but also psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers, among others.
The therapy can be carried out in both group or individualized settings and centers around a variety of activities designed to stimulate cognitive function – and by proxy neural activity in the brain.
Trained facilitators can use activities provided by professional manuals or create their own after consulting existing research. The NKU team used both established exercises and their own exercises in their study.
“The theory is, how can we stimulate somebody’s brain in a way that they will use these parts of their brain and prevent memory loss, prevent loss of cognitive functioning in general?”said Zoe Webb, the doctoral student who served as the study’s investigator.
One activity, for example, focused on the theme of sound and required patients to match the sounds of animals on a bingo card. The researchers would play the sound of a particular animal without showing a picture or any other information about that animal. Patients then had to match the sound with the animal’s picture on their bingo card.
It seems simple, but “that works so many different parts of cognition,” Range said.
The researchers then measure cognitive progress over a range of different categories across a set of time. They couldn’t share the results of their study prior to completing the peer review process, but the hope is to eventually publish their study in an academic journal, thereby building out the research literature in the States.
Although NKU’s study results aren’t yet available, there is existing literature on the therapy that offers insight into its effectiveness.
One 2023 literature review by researchers in China and Atlanta looked at numerous studies on the therapy and concluded “that CST can improve cognitive function for dementia with high-quality evidence supported.
However, since few studies reported follow-up data, there was a lack of high-quality evidence to support the long-term effect of CST on cognitive function. Moreover, the effect of CST on other health outcomes for people with dementia… has not been determined, and the level of evidence quality was low to moderate.”
In other words, there’s some evidence for cognitive improvements in studies with good data and evidence collection procedures, but evidence for the long-term benefits of the therapy is more iffy. Additionally, that analysis argues, outcomes for other aspects of living with dementia, like the therapy’s effect on mood and overall quality of life, haven’t been properly studied yet.
Another 2023 review, this time by the Cochrane Library, a charity medical database out of the UK, came to a similar conclusion: There were “small, short-term cognitive benefits for people with mild to moderate dementia participating in [cognitive stimulation] programmes.”
“We’re trying to prevent further cognitive loss for as long as possible,” Webb said.