Rocking Chair Therapy in Elderly With Dementia: Its Effects on Agitation

Patients with dementia exhibit a wide range of behavioral symptoms which include mood disturbances (e.g depression, anxiety), behavior and activity disturbances (e.g agitation, aggression, wandering) and psychotic symptoms (e.g hallucinations and delusions). Behavioral disturbances are a major source of caregiver burden and an important contributor to the decision to admit AD patients to institutionalized long-term care.

Among the innovative approaches, rocking chair therapy has been introduced as a potential means for reducing agitation in elderly with dementia. Only few studies evaluated the effect of this therapy on the behavioral symptoms in elderly with cognitive impairment. The results were promising, but not sufficiently significant.

We propose to perform this study having as a main goal to evaluate the effect of the rocking chair therapy in agitation for home care residents with dementia. The secondary aim of the study will be the evaluation of psychoactive drugs use as well as pain killers. Cohen Mansfield agitation inventory will be employed for the pre- and post-therapy evaluation.

Included subjects will be installed in groups of five, rocking chairs will be placed away from other residents in a semicircle in a corner of the dayroom. The therapy sessions will be held every afternoon, for two hours, under the supervision of the unit psychologist and a master's degree psychology student. During the daily session, each resident should be encouraged to actively rock to reach the goal of 60 minutes of rocking accumulated per day. The total duration of the therapy period will be 6 weeks. The use of pharmacological restraint (neuroleptics, anxiolytics) and pain killers will be evaluated before, during and after the six weeks therapy.

The expected outcome is a reduction of agitation among elderly with dementia, as well as a reduction in the use of pharmacological restraint and pain killers.