key: cord-0861285-7cwhuvxo
authors: Leung, Phuong; Lane, Janine
title: Bridging the gap in implementing non‐pharmacological interventions in dementia during the Covid‐19 pandemic: What more can we do to implementing individual Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (iCST) in dementia?
date: 2021-11-24
journal: Int J Geriatr Psychiatry
DOI: 10.1002/gps.5651
sha: 689ff8761c26f983e6ca7d228a4aad3d4c91eb7c
doc_id: 861285
cord_uid: 7cwhuvxo

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Bridging the gap in implementing non-pharmacological interventions in dementia during the Covid-19 pandemic: What more can we do to implementing individual Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (iCST) in dementia?

The Covid-19 pandemic has restricted people living with dementia from participating in cognitive and psychosocial activities and accessing invaluable sources, and support. 1 The prolonged lockdown may cause further decline in people living with dementia's mental well-being and increase feelings of loneliness. 2,3 Therefore, people living with dementia may need extra support from their family carers.

Higher caring demands may increase social isolation and depressive symptoms amongst family carers and negatively impact on the quality of caregiving relationship. 4 shows that iCST provided the opportunity for people living with dementia to engage in mentally stimulating and enjoyable activities that kept their "brain going", "staying alert" and feelings of enjoyment like "doing iCST was brilliant" or "it gave them a feeling of achieving something". They described the quality of their relationship with their family carers as such, "they could get a laugh out of doing iCST and the barriers come down". Family carers perceived iCST as a tool to frame conversations. 7 From a clinical perspective, it is important that iCST is not seen as another task for family carers to carry out, but as mutual-sharing meaningful activities which help family carers and people living with dementia to stay involved in each other's lives. 8 While many day centres and activity groups for people living with dementia were closed during the Covid-19 pandemic, home- Since iCST was designed to be delivered to people living with dementia in person, offering iCST through online digital technology has been challenging for many people. Currently this has not been evaluated through research. Factors hindering people living with dementia to take part in iCST sessions have not been addressed.

The attitudes towards technology of people living with dementia might be positive, but lack of experience or access to technical support in adapting online digital technology are likely to be barriers. 9 Some people do not have access to online digital technology or are unable to adapt to new approaches of interaction online. This may cause anxiety and affect concentration. 10 Therefore, adopting digital technology are unlikely to fully compensated as in person contact.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, discovering new ways of implementing iCST by utilising all the available technology to engage the person in the sessions is needed. 10 For example, the digital version of "Making a Difference 3" iCST: a manual for carers provides a very helpful resource to engage the person. The iCST Web-application has been found to be an interesting tool to support mental stimulation for people living dementia. 9 Furthermore, the one-to-one intervention enables the facilitator to plan sessions

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