A Brain-Health Lifestyle Restructuring Intervention for Older Adults With Mild Cognitive Decline : Feasibility, Effectiveness, and Experiences With the Intervention

With population aging, the number of older persons in Taiwan with cognitive impairments increases. Recent years witnessed an expansion of governmental policies and services dedicated to improve long-term care. It is critical to develop an effective cognitive intervention that can prevent, delay, or slow down cognitive decline. Although literature support a multi-modal approach to preserve the cognitive capacity of older adults with cognitive impairments, there is inadequate attention to facilitate the integration of cognitively therapeutic activities to daily routines, nor to the establishment of a lifestyle that promote brain health. Therefore, the adherence to the intervention program was low after the program ended.

Literature support the effectiveness of a lifestyle approach to promote the health of and reduce medical cost for persons with chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Empirical evidence also supports the effectiveness of Lifestyle Redesign intervention to improve the general health and quality of life of frail older adults. The investigators propose to combine a multi-modal cognitive intervention and lifestyle redesign approach to improve the brain health of older persons with cognitive impairments. The goals of this project are thus three-folds:

1. To develop a contextualized lifestyle restructuring intervention that facilitates the integration of cognition-promoting activities into daily routines and examine the feasibility of this intervention.
2. To compare the effectiveness of a brain-health lifestyle restructuring intervention, social activity, and passive control in (1) general cognition, activity participation, activities of daily living function, and quality of life, and (2)physical function and cognitive function at the end of the intervention, 6 months after, and one year after.
3. To qualitatively explore the experiences of the participants with the intervention, perceived effectiveness, and its contextual influences.

This is a three-year project using a combined pragmatic randomized controlled clinical trial and multiple case studies mixed-method research design. One hundred twenty-two older adults with cognitive impairments and residing in community will be recruited and randomly assigned to the groups of Lifestyle Intervention, Social Activities, and Passive Control. Subjects in the Lifestyle Intervention group will, in six months, receive sixteen group sessions and six individualized treatment sessions. Social Activities Group will receive twenty-two group sessions. Control group will receive patient education materials with each assessment. All participants will receive pre- and post-intervention, 6-month, and 12-month follow-up evaluations. Primary outcomes include cognitive function, activity participation, daily activity functions , and quality of life. Secondary outcomes include physical function, functional memory, working memory, complex attention, and processing speed.

Descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, factorial ANNOVA, and Generalized Estimating Equation will be used to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of the Lifestyle Restructuring Intervention. This study will also use multiple case studies to qualitatively understand the experiences of eight participants about their participation in the intervention, cognitive decline, and the contextual factors that affects their participation. Sequential interviews and participant observation will be used to do qualitative data collection.