Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction With Older Adults Living With Cognitive Impairment in Primary Care.

Summary

People living with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) experience less efficiency in performing complex everyday tasks, which may result in a general sense of discontentment and decreased satisfaction with their overall functional performance. Additionally, SCD and MCI have been associated with concomitant anxiety, depressive mood, perceived stress, a decrease in emotional well-being and quality-of-life (QoL) among community-dwelling older adults. These concomitant psychosocial issues may result in emotional distress which further exacerbates cognitive decline.

At the present time, there is a lack of evidence that supports pharmacologic interventions to ameliorate concomitant psychosocial issues with this particular population due to medication side-effects, drug-drug interaction and polypharmacy. Consequently, exploring alternative non-pharmacological interventions to assist in ameliorating psychosocial issues is an important consideration. Secondly, evaluating perceived satisfaction on functional performance with those living with SCD and MCI, and assessing interventions that may support this is also worthwhile to pursue. Primary care providers are often the first point of contact when older adults and their families become concerned about memory problems. Health care professionals, on an interdisciplinary Family Health Team (FHT), such as occupational therapists, are well-positioned to holistically address both the psychosocial and functional needs in a client/family centred way with this growing population in primary care. The study proposes to offer a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, which is an 8-week program that has been shown to be beneficial in alleviating emotional distress among adults living with physical and psychological issues in the general population.

Conditions

• Feasibility Randomized Control Trial

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

The intervention group will be delivered in a group-based format, for one three-hour session per week for an 8-week period. Each session will consist of mindfulness practice (e.g. lying down body scan, sitting meditation, mindful eating, mindful movements such as walking and light hatha yoga movements) along with an inquiry about the practice. Strategies on stress reactivity, responding to stress, and some basic content on cognitive behaviour therapy principles will also be taught. Participants will be placed in dyads during the group. Homework practice will be given to complete on a daily basis for approximately 30-45 minutes. During week six participants will attend an all-day silent meditation retreat on a Saturday (Total of 10 sessions = 8 sessions, 1 orientation, and 1 all-day retreat).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Queen's University

  collaborator OTHER

• Women's College Hospital

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

60 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-10-03

Primary Completion

2020-02-29

Completion

2020-08-31

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations