Cognitive Stimulation Therapy

Alzheimer's Disease is an insidious onset and slowly progressive disease, characterized by the presence of cognitive, behavioral and general dysfunction. Among the neuropsychiatric and behavioral symptoms seen in Alzheimer's patients, apathy is the most common symptom. It is also followed by depression, aggression, anxiety and sleep disorders. Behavioral and psychological symptoms (BPSD) affect up to 90% of people with dementia during the illness. Therefore, it brings great difficulties to both patients and their caregivers and causes low quality of life. In addition, the inability to treat the disease completely worsens this situation. Considering the pharmacological treatment of psychological symptoms such as apathy, anxiety, depression in AD individuals, the existence of adverse side effects, increased mortality, limited drug efficacy, relatively high cost, and the inability to effectively treat some of the most distressing behaviors, it is recommended to give priority to non-pharmacological interventions.

The concept of cognitive stimulation in AD is one of the most popular approaches. It is stated that Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST) is the best evidence-based practice with robust clinical trials, applied according to a specific guideline for individuals with mild and moderate dementia. In addition, CST is the only intervention recommended by the UK's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) to promote cognition, independence and well-being for people with mild to moderate dementia. It has been determined that CST has many effects on individuals with Alzheimer's disease. However, there are different results in studies on the effectiveness of cognitive intervention strategies aimed at reducing cognitive functions, behavioral and psychiatric symptoms. To enable the conversion of CST into routine clinical practice, practice research to support the standardization and generalization of cognitive stimulation therapy planned for patients with AD and its impact on improving neuropsychiatric symptoms and daily living skills requires further research. In addition, the absence of a widely used standard guideline for pharmacological methods for patients with AD in our country reveals that the planned study will contribute to practice. It has been confirmed by many studies that CST applied to individuals with AD contributes to the strengthening of cognitive, psychological and social aspects, but there are few studies applied by nurses. It is noteworthy that the studies on the CST program applied by nurses in our country are limited. Therefore, the need for more clinical studies is emphasized by nurses to build and disseminate knowledge in this area, as the intervention has been little studied. In addition, the absence of a widely used standard guideline for pharmacological methods for patients with AD in our country reveals that the planned study will contribute to practice. In this study, it is aimed to investigate the effect of CST application on the levels of apathy, loneliness, anxiety and daily living activities in elderly individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

This research was planned in a single center and experimental research design with pretest posttest control group. The research was planned to be carried out between January 2023 and June 202 at the Moral House affiliated to Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality Disabled and Health Services Department. Introductory Information Form, Standardized Mini-Mental Test, Geriatric Anxiety Scale, Apathy Rating Scale, Loneliness Scale and Functional Disability in Dementia Scale will be used in the research. CST will be applied by a trained researcher in therapy, 2 days a week, in a total of 14 sessions of 45-50 minutes. There will be a pre-test before the application, an intermediate test right after the application, and a post-test three months later. Research data will be evaluated in SPSS 25.0 New York package program.

Inclusion criteria

• 60 years or older,
• Having a mild Alzheimer's diagnosis and a Standardized Mini Mental Test score in the range of 18-23,
• Able to speak and understand Turkish,
• Hearing, understanding, seeing and speaking problems,
• Having no physical illness or disability to participate in group work,
• Have not participated in the CST program before, Individuals who volunteer to participate in the research will be included in the study.

Exclusion criteria

• Not meeting any of the research inclusion criteria,
• Have not attended at least two sessions of the CST program,
• Patients who refuse/want to leave the CST program will be excluded from the study by the investigator.