Cognitive Rehabilitation An Effective Intervention to Decrease the Cognitive Deficits in Older Adults With Alzheimer Disease

Objectives: The aim of present study was to investigate the effect of cognitive rehabilitation, a new and non-pharmacological approach to reduce memory and other cognitive deficits in Alzheimer's disease. Methods & Materials: This study was a quasi-experimental research, in singlesubject study-with control group- and based on an A-B design. That was conducted in two groups of control and experimental in order to evaluate effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation, to decrease memory and other cognitive function deficits in elders with Alzheimer's disease. Subjects consisted of eight patients (4 controls and 4 experiments) with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. For experiment group, interventions were held in 45 minutes -1 hour session, twice weekly for 6 weeks. For data collection, patients evaluated through MMSE, WMS-O, 1 and 12 sessions. Nonparametric statistical analysis were conducted to compare the control and experimental groups. Results: The analysis of data showed that cognitive functions in the paired patients and groups before the interventions were similar, but after the intervention, level of cognitive and memory functions in experimental group increased significantly (d=1.22 and d=2.54) and improvement. Conclusion: Consequently, the hypothesis of “cognitive rehabilitation improves the memory in elders with Alzheimer’s disease”, was confirmed.