title: Cognitive stimulation by caregivers for people with dementia.
abstract: Cognitive stimulation (CS) is a psychological intervention for people with dementia aimed at maintaining cognitive functioning. CS provided by caregivers would allow long-term maintenance without greatly increasing demands on health services, but raises questions concerning treatment fidelity and acceptability, which were investigated in this study. Caregivers of home-living people with dementia were trained to provide CS activities to their relative with dementia. Recordings of intervention sessions and analysis of training manuals suggested adequate delivery of the intervention. Dyads continued with the activities after caregiver training had stopped. In addition, presentation of the activities without supervision from a health care professional had no detrimental effect on well-being in the caregiver or the person with dementia. The majority of caregivers indicated that, even though they experienced some burden from doing the activities with their relative, they themselves had also benefited from the intervention and intended to continue with some of the activities.
authors.affiliation: Psychology, School of Life Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK. m.milders@hw.ac.uk
authors.forename: Maarten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Milders
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bell
authors.forename: Angus
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lorimer
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: MacEwan
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: McBain
mesh_terms: D017028:Caregivers; D003071:Cognition; D003704:Dementia / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans
keywords: Caregiver burden; Caregiver-led; Cognitive stimulation; Dementia; Quality-of-life