Collaborative memory intervention in dementia: Caregiver participation matters

Abstract

The aim of the study was to examine the effectiveness of a collaborative memory intervention for persons with dementia and their spousal caregivers, where the couple acquired and practised memory supportive strategies (spaced-retrieval and hierarchical cuing) to learn a face–name association and to set a table for coffee/tea. The collaborative intervention was compared to an individual intervention where the person with dementia received the same training but without the participating caregiver and to a control group of couples receiving no training. The results showed that following collaborative intervention recall performance in two collaborative tasks became more equally shared between the spouses, reflected in a decrease in recall for the caregiver and in an increase in recall for the spouse with dementia between pre- and post-test; whereas for the other two groups the caregivers dominated collaborative recall both at pre- and post-test. The results also showed that the persons with dementia in the collaborative group improved their individually assessed episodic memory performance as compared to the persons with dementia in the other two groups. Finally, training had no effects on episodic memory, perceived burden or depressive symptoms for the caregivers. These results suggest that the active participation of the caregiver matters in cognitive dementia rehabilitation.

Keywords:

• Collaborative memory
• Social interaction
• Cognitive rehabilitation
• Memory training
• Older adults

We are deeply grateful to the participants and the spousal caregivers who invited us to their homes and willingly participated in this research. We are also indebted to Marie Persson for helping out with data collection. This work was funded by a grant to Anna Stigsdotter Neely and Staffan Josephsson from the Swedish Research Council of Working Life and Social Sciences.