Neuro Note #5- Alzheimer's Disease

 For this neuro note I read an article from AJOT titled "Occupational Therapy Interventions for People with Alzheimer's Disease." One of the professional development goals I made in Foundations was to "become familiar with OT journals (such as AJOT) by citing two different resources in assignments I complete." After having my PDE meeting I decided I needed to be more proactive about learning to use the AJOT, and I began exploring scholarly articles. I liked this article because it talks about the symptoms of Alzheimer's as well as giving specific assessments and interventions that can be used for the listed symptoms.

This articles gives a case study on a 75 year old woman names Mrs. Clark, who is newly diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and her husband and now caregiver Mr. Clark. A home-based OT came and did an occupational profile on Mrs. Clark to learn about her family, interests, hobbies, routines, and goals. During the occupational profile Mr.Clark brought up his main areas of concern which were ADLs, safety, sleep schedule, accepting help, and agitation. The OT, Tamara, administered 4 different evidence-based assessments to Mrs. Clark to address her symptoms and all of the areas of concern listed by Mr. Clark, as well as a Disability Assessment for Dementia for Mr. Clark. All of these assessments were for treating Mrs. Clark, but what I thought was very interesting and intuitive on the part of the OT was that she administered a Geriatric Depression Scale- Short Survey to Mr. Clark as she could sense his nerves during her visit. I think her OP and assessment choices showed to me that she intended to treat the client as a whole. The assessment results did indeed show a need for OT to address all the areas of concern as it showed she needs 24- hour supervision to perform ADLs and for safety. Tamara's interventions were very well planned out and were directly related to Mrs. Clark's interests. Mrs. and Mr. Clark participated in all interventions, which included errorless learning in safe transfers, dressing and grooming, altering the ambiance of the room to promote a calmer environment, adding automatic nightlights for safety, and a nightly walks to the community garden to plant to promote excise (which in return is proven to promote sleep). I love the way these incorporated Mrs. Clark's two biggest interests, music (used for the calming/ambiance) and  gardening. These occupation based interventions helped Mrs. Clark to reach all her goals by the end of their 12 sessions and even improve Mr. Clark's score on the depression scale.

I am really glad I chose to read this article and want to continue to read articles like this. Not only did I learn about symptoms and the way Alzeimer's sometimes presents itself, but I learned about the OT process of addressing the client and designing interventions. It was very relevant to my learning to read about specific interventions as now I can add these to my mental list of future intervention ideas. Tamara surely taught me about how to address OT in the most wholistic and client centered way.

Catherine Verrier Piersol, Lou Jensen, Deborah Lieberman, Marian Arbesman; Occupational Therapy Interventions for People With Alzheimer’s Disease. Am J Occup Ther 2017;72(1):7201390010. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2018.721001