A small-scale study comparing the impact of psycho-education and exploratory psychotherapy groups on newcomers to a group for people with dementia

Abstract

Background: The importance of providing emotional support to people newly diagnosed as having dementia is now widely recognised. However, the evidence base for this work is limited, so that it is difficult to draw conclusions either about whether this form of work is effective or which form of intervention might be most suitable for people with dementia.

Objectives: This study compared the effectiveness of exploratory psychotherapy and psycho-educational group interventions for new group members.

Methodology: Participants had received a diagnosis of Dementia of the Alzheimer's type or a similar form of dementia and had a mild level of cognitive impairment. Interventions occurred in ten, weekly sessions with participants attending either a psychotherapy or a psycho-educational group, each of which were facilitated by the same team of clinicians, and had the same amount of therapist contact. Data relating to levels of mood was collected at the start and at the end of the group intervention from eight participants in each arm of the study. Data collection occurred independently from the intervention by a researcher who was blind to the form of intervention.

Results: There was a significant interaction between mode of therapy and levels of depression and a borderline significant interaction between therapy type and levels of anxiety. However, once the low affect level of participants in the psycho-educational groups was controlled for, differences between the interventions were non-significant.

Discussion: Although the results that can be drawn from this study are limited, nevertheless it supports previous research indicating that a 10-week group psychotherapy intervention can be effective in reducing levels of depression for people with a mild level of dementia.

Keywords:

• Alzheimer's disease
• dementia
• psychotherapy
• psycho-education
• groups

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Laura Cole, and Anne Todd for their work in collecting data, Rebecca Thompson for her help in preparing the project application, Gill Podger for her administrative support, Anna Littlechild for being a part of the management group, Gordon Taylor for his statistical advice and Tony Soteriou for his assistance in securing funding for this project. The research on which this article was based was funded by a grant from Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Care (NHS) Partnership Trust.