The Impact of a Social Stimulation on Social Interactions in Institutionalized People With Dementia

60 people with moderate dementia living in a french nursing homme participated in this study. Residents gave oral consent twice to participate. They were classified in groups of six residents taking into account socio-demographic and medical characteristics. Two experimental conditions were proposed : 1. a social stimulation session (36 residents) and 2. a control group without direct social stimulation (24 residents). Collected socio-demographic and medical characteristics are age, gender, timf of institutionalization, sociocultural level, marital status and diagnostic hypothesis. Before the study, scales and questionnaires were used to assess cognitive status with the Mini Mental State Examination (Folstein et al, 1975); functional abilities with Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (Lawton and Brody, 1969); depression with the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (Alexopoulos et al, 1988); psychological and behavioural disorders with the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (Cummings et al, 1994); and the quality of life with the Alzheimer's Disease Related Quality of Life (Rabins et al, 1999).

Social interactions are video taped and analyzed in a grid of observation.

The aim of the study is to see if there is an impact on social interactions after just one social stimulation session compared to a control group situation. Expected results are that residents of the social stimulation group will have more social interactions between us than the resident of the control group.