Making a Difference 3 - Individual Intervention of Cognitive Stimulation

Population aging in Portugal has led to problematic social issues (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Spector, Woods & Orrell, 2008; Wimo & Prince, 2010). At the same time, there is a noticeable increase in the prevalence of Neurocognitive Disorders (NCDs), commonly referred to in clinical practice as mild cognitive impairment and dementia (Apóstolo, Cardoso, Silva & Costa, 2014; Apóstolo & Cardoso, 2014).

NCDs can be classified based on the degree of cognitive decline, ranging from mild to major, and based on etiology, which includes Alzheimer's disease, Vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, Frontotemporal dementia, and others (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

In the European context, Portugal is among the minority of countries that do not have an official strategy for the care of people with mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Therefore, it is imperative to define national health policies that address the identified needs (Knapp et al., 2006).

Currently, non-pharmacological interventions, such as Individual Cognitive Stimulation (ICS), are gaining relevance as treatment responses to the aforementioned syndromes, due to the increasing clinical, social, and economic impact of mild cognitive impairment and dementia (Aguirre, Hoare, Spector, Woods, & Orrell, 2014; Apóstolo et al., 2014).

ICS can be considered the implementation of a set of meaningful activities, carried out over several sessions, usually in a social context, with the aim of stimulating various domains, including attention, thinking, language, memory, and calculation (Aguirre et al., 2012; Apóstolo et al., 2014; Yates, Orrell, Spector & Orgeta, 2015).

Current evidence supports the effectiveness of this intervention, indicating that ICS programs are associated with health benefits, particularly in cognition, mood, well-being, functional activity, quality of life, and communication skills (Apóstolo et al., 2014; Yates et al., 2014).

Providing care to people with mild cognitive impairment and dementia poses a challenge for the healthcare system, necessitating the implementation of specific interventions to increase self-care potential, autonomy, adaptation, and coping with deficits, as well as empowering the family and/or support network (Alzheimer Europe, 2013; Orrell et al., 2012; Woods, Aguirre, Spector & Orrell, 2012; Yates et al., 2015). Due to the global pandemic context of SARS-CoV-2, social care institutions for the elderly underwent changes in their dynamics. One of the measures implemented during the emergency plan was the closure of adult day care centers. The elderly who previously attended these social care facilities are now staying in their own homes or with family/informal caregivers, thus being deprived of the social and cognitive stimuli they were accustomed to.

The mobilization of this population to their homes has led to increased social isolation and loneliness, which are underestimated public health risks. These factors affect a significant proportion of the elderly population and can lead to cognitive decline, feelings of loneliness, sadness, and abandonment, which were previously alleviated by the social care centers (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2020).

Given the described situation, the Making a Difference 3 program - an ICS program - represents an excellent implementation option, as it can be developed in various contexts, including the home environment, using cost-effective resources, addressing many of the needs of both individuals with cognitive impairment and their informal family caregivers.

In summary, in Portugal, there is no established practice of implementing structured ICS interventions with individual sessions for use in the home environment. Thus, there is a need for the MD3 program to be disseminated to promote best practices. In response to the needs arising from the current pandemic context, the team of this project aims to produce national evidence on the effect of ICS in individuals with mild cognitive impairment and dementia, in the home environment of the elderly person, managed by informal caregivers and supervised by healthcare professionals.