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Verification of skill improvement of Dementia prevention supporters
International Conference on Parkinson’s, Huntington’s & Movement Disorders
April 17-18, 2019 | Frankfurt, Germany
Kazue Sawami, Mitsuo Kimura, Tetsuro Kitamura, Mihoko Furusumi, Masahiko Kawaguchi,Chizuko Suishu, Naoko Morisaki and Sonomi Hattori
Nara Medical University, Japan Shubun University, Japan Himeji University, Japan Wakayama Medical University, Japan
Posters & Accepted Abstracts : J Brain Neurol
Abstract:
Background and purpose of the study: Nowadays,
one out of four elderly people suffer from dementia.
To establish the prevention for dementia is one of
our international goals. With this background, we
conducted a so-called “Step-up Training” comprised
of 12 sessions for caregivers who possess certification
for recreational therapy. The intended effect is to for
them to learn techniques for dementia prevention
and practice these techniques to elderly people.
Methods: We conducted surveys once at the
beginning of the training and one more time at the
session number six, which serves as the interim
assessment. We compared these results to see
how their responses changed after going through 6
sessions of the trainings.
Results: This survey presents the results of the 6th
interim evaluation. The data for 46 valid respondents
out of the 69 registrants were analyzed. The average
age was 60.1± 9.5, with 6 males and 40 females.
The results showed that they did stepped up from
just knowing recreational therapy to knowing
various methods and evidence behind these
methods regarding dementia prevention. Their selfassessment
of techniques increased from 2.26 to
4.02 in average with 5 being the maximum (paired
t-test: p<0.01).
Conclusion: Practical dementia prevention requires
the combined method of aerobic exercises and
cognitive trainings and also they have to be
enjoyable so that the elderly people can enjoy these
activities every day. To develop the talents who can
extensively practice this is an urgent matter in the
field. Also it is an effective support for increasing
number of the preventable people of dementia. We
were able to confirm the improved skills among the
trainees in this study. In the future, we will present
the results of their actual practices and application
of their skills. This research funding is scientific
research expenses of the Japanese Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Biography:
Kazue Sawami is a professor at Nara Medical University and completed her PhD at health science. Her research is about the cognitive abilities of elderly people. Current clinical trials below. UMIN000029749, 000025484.
E-mail: sawami@naramed-u.ac.jp
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