Cognitive rehabilitation in early-stage dementia

Abstract

AbstractRehabilitation approaches aiming to optimize well-being and manage disability provide an appropriate framework for the care of people with dementia. There is a long-standing tradition of cognition-focused intervention in this area, and recent work has applied the principles of cognitive rehabilitation primarily to assist people in the early stages of dementias such as Alzheimer's disease. This chapter describes three distinct types of cognition-focused intervention for people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease: cognitive stimulation, cognitive training, and cognitive rehabilitation. Evidence for effectiveness of cognitive training is very weak, but both cognitive stimulation and cognitive rehabilitation hold promise, with cognitive rehabilitation approximating most closely to the parameters set out in the evaluation criteria. Therefore, this chapter argues that cognitive rehabilitation addressing individual, personally-relevant goals, assessed in terms of impact on disability, offers the most beneficial way forward.