Supporting everyday activities in dementia: An intervention study

The efficacy of an intervention programme designed to support performance in activities of daily living was investigated in four patients with dementia at different levels of severity of impairment. Important features of the programme included that (a) task conditions should be highly supportive, (b) the importance of episodic and semantic memory skills for successful performance should be minimized, (c) an acceptable performance level should be possible to achieve using skills that are relatively well preserved in the disease, and (d) factors related to patients' motivation and habits should be taken into account. Performance gains were evaluated using the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills instrument. Results showed intervention-related gains in three patients. One of these patients maintained performance gains when environmental guidance (eg signs) was withdrawn, whereas the other two required environmental guidance in order to exhibit gains. The overall pattern of results suggests that this form of intervention related to everyday functioning in dementia is worthy of further empirical attention.