The Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) to Improve Depression Symptoms and Quality of Life in Individuals With Dementia and Their Caregivers: A Pilot Study

The overall objective of the proposed study is to investigate the efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) to alleviate depression symptoms, increase attention abilities, and improve quality of life in individuals with dementia and their caregivers. MBCT works to help individuals increase concentration and increase awareness of depressive thinking to ultimately provide a better means of coping and emotional regulation.

While dementia is non-reversible and progressive in nature, supportive interventions, especially at the early stage of the disease, can make life more manageable for both dementia individuals and their caregivers. Along with the initial signs of forgetfulness and concentration difficulties, it is common for both individuals with dementia and their primary caregivers to also experience depression symptoms. For dementia individuals, depression symptoms are common early on as they still have insight into their disease. This increase in depression has been shown to be related to apathy, overall poorer quality of life and cognitive decline. Caregivers not only witness a significant change in daily functioning of someone they love and know well, they are also faced with new responsibilities associated with managing the disease, while simultaneously trying to juggling their own day-to-day tasks. These drastic changes and increased responsibilities have been shown to increase feelings of depression and burden, resulting in coping-related problems in caregivers.

Counseling intervention in early stages of dementia has been shown to delay and even decrease patient admittance into long-term facilities, ultimately relieving stress placed on the healthcare system. MBCT is a specific program designed to, and proven successful at, treating various populations with recurrent depression. With its unique therapeutic approach of integrating intensive training in mindfulness meditation with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, MBCT helps individuals pay greater attention, increase concentration, increase awareness of depressive thinking and learn to apply more skillful means of coping. In addition to treating depression, the meditation component of MBCT has also been shown to improve various aspects of attention and result in changes in neural networks implicated in attention processes. The investigators predict that MBCT will alleviate depression symptoms and increase quality of life in both patients and caregivers. The investigators also expect that individuals will experience improvements in attention and memory abilities.

If successful, MBCT could improve overall quality of life in dementia individuals and caregivers, as well as benefit our healthcare system by delaying institutionalization. From a research perspective, success of this program may lead to a larger clinical controlled trial to further investigate the efficacy of MBCT in individuals affected by dementia.