Positive feelings expression by persons with MCI and dementia in early stages has negative relationship with BPSD.

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24653151
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Social welfare and social work studies
• Research Institution: Doshisha University
• Principal Investigator: YAMADA Hiroko 同志社大学, 社会学部, 教授 (80278457)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): TAKECHI Hajime 京都大学, 医学研究科, 講師 (10314197)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): SUGIHARA Yurko 京都府立医科大学, 医学部, 講師 (90555179)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 初期認知症 / MCI / BPSD / 友好的会話環境 / ポジティヴな感情表出 / 家庭訪問 / 認知症カフェ / 初期集中支援

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study investigated the hypothesis of the negative relationship between positive emotional expression and Behavioral Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (=BPSD) by offering two kinds of friendly conversation milieu to people with early stage dementia as well as MCI. The first milieu is the dementia caffe and the second is participants’home visited by two social workers.
Although the results are still tentative, this hypothesis is promising in the current analyses. In both contexts, BPSD of people with dementia and burdened feelings of caregivers declined through regular participation in the friendly conversation for eight months. As the emotional expression was found to be important not only in people with dementia, but also in family caregivers, it is suggested that offering the opportunity for emotional expression and the support to people with dementia and their families in parallel will be more beneficial to the well-being of both parties.

Free Research Field

社会福祉