Improvisational Movement for People With Memory Loss and Their Caregivers

Summary

Dementia is a progressive decline in cognition that impairs a person's ability to perform activities of daily living. Changes in mood, gait, and balance are prominent secondary symptoms of Alzheimer's dementia that can dramatically decrease quality of life for the person with dementia and increase caregiver burden. The overall aim of this study is to determine the independent and combined effects of dance movement and social engagement on quality of life in people with early-stage dementia, and test the neural mechanisms of these effects.

Conditions

• Alzheimer's Disease (Incl Subtypes)
• Dementia
• Mild Cognitive Impairment

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Dance Group

Active imagination refers to working with imagery and is crucial in improvisatory practice. Verbal auditory cues are used to create movement scenarios that cue or activate the motor imagination. Variability means the improvisational method does not aim to learn a specific movement pattern and habituate to it. Cues are delivered quickly, one after another. Within an average of two minutes, tasks requiring quicker decision-making are introduced. Pacing is the rate at which new movement prompts are presented. Quick changes in pace avoid defaulting to habitual responses, thereby facilitating new movement options. Participants cannot rely on copying another, memory, or anticipation to address the motor problem.

BEHAVIORAL

Non-Group Dance

The caregiver will be asked to stay in the area while the subject is dancing. A video camera will be affixed in an upper corner of the room to record individual dance sessions. This recording will yield data that a trained student or staff member can view and code to document movement fidelity (e.g., that the person has responded to the dance prompts and for the purpose of comparing the amount of quality of movements that occur in individual vs. group dance settings). For the first two sessions, study staff would observe the full dance session from outside the room to be sure that instruction was clear and adherence was attained, and that no safety issues arise.

BEHAVIORAL

Social Group

The social group will consist of improvisational party games to foster curiosity and playfulness, use imagery, and encourage non-judgment. Games that may be used include 'Balderdash', 'Wise and Otherwise', 'Charades', 'Pictionary', and 'Tell Me A Story' cards. These games will also use the same core strategies as the dance group. Games will be varied within an hour-long session to incorporate pacing and variability into the social group, akin to the dance group. The social group will occur 2x/week for 1 hour each time and be led by the same instructors who lead the Dance Group, to control for effects of personality of the group leader.

BEHAVIORAL

No Contact

The condition of not receiving an intervention can have ethical implications and reduce retention rates. Therefore, these participants will be invited to join in a weekly community improvisational dance class after they complete the study, for as many sessions as they would like.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

  collaborator NIH

• Wake Forest University Health Sciences

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Christina Hugenschmidt, PhD · Assistant Professor Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

60 Years

Max Age

85 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-02-06

Primary Completion

2021-05-26

Completion

2021-05-26

Countries

• United States

Study Locations