| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
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| Research Abstract |
The first object of this study was to revise our previously developed "Discourse Assessment Scale for Dementia" and improve its simplicity and handiness. In addition to detect communication deficits of people with dementia, we aimed at expanding it into a clinically useful assessment scale, which would also be able to evaluate the effectiveness of clinical intervention.
In the first place, we made up a new version of the discourse assessment scale, which included the same contents as the original scale, but was modified in order to make assessment work easier. We compared the two scales in terms of inter-rater reliability and handiness, and found little difference between them.
Second, we administered the discourse assessment and MMSE to people with Alzheimer's disease of a wide range of severity, and examined the correlation between the discourse performance and the general cognitive abilities measured by MMSE. There were statistically significant correlation coefficients between the step values of the discourse scale and MMSE score.
We also gathered information on the actual state of dementia assessment and intervention by speech-language-hearing therapists (SLHT) in Japan. It turned out that many SLHTs experienced difficulty in conducting assessment and effective intervention.
As a tool for communication intervention, we developed "the Memory Slide Show" and carried out a preliminary study to investigate the change of communication by the use of this tool. It was suggested that the slide show was useful for conversation, but that the communication performance fluctuated due to environmental differences.
Further, we are planning to clarify the influence of the slide show on conversation and to examine the change of communication performance according to the listeners/caregiver, the topic of conversation, the communication setting, and other factors using our assessment scale.
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