Search

Aim: To determine whether giving dementia caregivers active psychoeducational intervention is more efficacious than passive intervention for improving their caregiving skills and reducing their caregiving burden. Methods: This study was a prospective, single‐blinded, controlled trial with 43 caregiver/person‐with‐dementia dyads. The dyads were randomly assigned to the active psychoeducational intervention (AP) group, which used role‐play, discussion, and development of problem‐solving capacity to build up their caregiving skills and competence, or the passive psychoeducational intervention (PP) group, which gave caregivers educational materials on common caregiving strategies. Primary outcomes were the levels of caregiver competence (Care Skill Inventory [CSI]), burden (Chinese Zarit Burden Inventory [CZBI]), and distress caused by the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (Neuropsychiatric Inventory‐Questionnaire [NPI‐Q]). Outcomes were assessed pre‐test, post‐test and after 3 months. Repeated measures one‐way analysis of variance was used to compare mean‐change scores between time‐points, and generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to compare groups. Results: Post‐test or 3‐month (or both) Care Skill Inventory, Chinese Zarit Burden Inventory and Neuropsychiatric Inventory‐Questionnaire distress levels were significantly (p < 0.05) better in the AP but not in the PP group. The generalized estimating equation intergroup comparison, adjusted for potential confounders, showed that Care Skill Inventory in the AP group was more significantly improved than in the PP group, and that Chinese Zarit Burden Inventory nearly reached significance. Conclusions: Active rather than passive psychoeducation, even in a short (3 months) intervention of six visits, was more efficacious for improving caregiving competence. Future studies will require larger samples. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2018; 18: 750–757. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Increasing evidence shows that bilingualism or multilingualism may have beneficial effects on preventing dementia. We performed a cross-sectional, community-based study in Taiwan. Some elders (older than 70 years) in Taiwan can speak Japanese because of the formal Japanese education they received before World War II, when Taiwan was under Japanese rule. After the war, Mandarin Chinese was adopted as the official language of Taiwan. We assessed whether constantly using three languages had an effect on dementia prevalence and cognitive function. Methods We defined multilingualism as the ability to fluently speak Taiwanese (T), Japanese (J), and Mandarin Chinese (C) in daily life. We evaluated the Mini-Mental State Examination and AD8 questionnaire results of 514 community-dwelling people older than 70 years in Taishan, Taiwan. Results Seventy-three of the subjects (14.2%) were multilingual (T, J, C) and 441 (85.8%) were bilingual (T, C). No difference was noted in dementia prevalence between multilingual (6.8%) and bilingual (7.4%) populations, but multilinguals were older than bilinguals (mean age: 79.9 vs 77.3 years). Multilinguals had higher Mini-Mental State Examination scores than bilinguals (mean: 24.6 vs. 22.7). However, after the subjects were stratified into low and high education level groups, the Mini-Mental State Examination difference was found to be significant in only the low education level group. Conclusions Dementia prevalence did not significantly differ between the multilingual (T, J, C) and bilingual (T, C) groups. However, given that the average age of the multilingual group was approximately 2 years older than that of the bilingual group, there may have been minor effects in the multilingual group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]