Evaluation of the efficacy of a cognitive rehabilitation treatment on a group of Alzheimer's patients with moderate cognitive impairment: a pilot study.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a cognitive rehabilitation intervention performed in an Alzheimer's Day Care Center for 12 months on patients suffering from Alzheimer's-type dementia with moderate cognitive impairment. In the cognitive rehabilitation treatment of moderate cognitive impairment, the leading cognitive stimulation techniques are reality orientation therapy and cognitive training. While these techniques are meant to treat different cognitive environments, there is scarce documentation in literature about their joint use. For this purpose, the therapy was administered to two groups of patients: the experimental group was composed of four subjects and received cognitive rehabilitation (cognitive training plus reality orientation therapy); the control group was composed of five subjects and received aspecific stimulation. To assess subjects' responses the Milan Overall Dementia Assessment and the Mini-Mental State Examination were used for the cognitive domain, while the Geriatric Depression Scale was used for the affective sphere. The results indicated that the subjects submitted to cognitive rehabilitation obtain statistically significant results compared to the control group from the 9 months of treatment, in clinical terms; they maintain their cognitive performance, while no significant differences were found between the two groups as far as the affective domain is concerned.