Associations between performance of activities of daily living and everyday technology use among older adults with mild stage Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment

Abstract

Background: The use of everyday technology (ET) is important for many activities in daily life (ADL) and can be especially challenging for older adults with cognitive impairments. Objective: The aim was to explore associations between ADL performance and perceived ability to use ET among older adults with mild stage Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). ADL motor and process ability, and ability to use ET were also compared between the groups. Methods: Participants with AD (n = 39) and MCI (n = 28) were included. Associations and group differences were explored with non-parametric statistics. Results: Significant correlations were found between ADL process ability and ET use in both groups (R_s = 0.44 and 0.32, p < 0.05), but for ADL motor ability and ET use, correlations were only found in the MCI group (R_s = 0.51, p < 0.01). The MCI group had significantly higher measures of ADL process ability (p < 0.001) and ET use (p < 0.05). Conclusion: ADL performance ability and perceived ability to use ET are important to consider in evaluations of older adults with cognitive impairments. Group differences indicate that measures of ADL performance ability and ET use are sensitive enough to discriminate the MCI group from the AD group with individually overlapping measures.

Key words:

• occupational therapy
• dementia
• cognitive impairments
• assessments of functional ability
• ADL

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the participants, who generously shared their daily lives. They also wish to thank the OTs who performed the data gathering; Monica Pantzar, Pernilla Lundh, and Sofia Starkhammar, as well as the OTs engaged in the recruitment of participants. The research was supported by the Health Care Science Postgraduate School and the Strategic Research Program in Care Sciences (SFO-V) at Karolinska Institutet, Swedish Brainpower, and the Stockholm County Council through the agreement on medical training and clinical research (ALF) between Stockholm County Council and the Karolinska institutet.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflict of interests and are alone responsible for the content and writing of the paper.