P3–250: A brain fitness program for people with dementia concurrent with a support group for their caregivers is feasible
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Caregiver (CG) support groups are widely available for CGs of persons with dementia (PWD). When a CG attends a support group, the PWD is left home either alone or with another CG. In this abstract we describe the implementation and feasibility of a brain fitness program (BFP) for PWD that occurs concurrently with a support group for their CGs. PWD of any type or stage were invited to participate in a cognitive support program based upon activities from Brain Fitness by Suzanne Fitzsimmons (Venture Publishing, 2008). Each session consisted of stretching, motor activity and cognitively stimulating activities focused on memory, attention, executive functioning, sensory input, and language. The BFP was run concurrently with a support group for each participant's CG. Participants are administered the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) at the first and last session. Additionally, a simple 4-item, 6-point visual analogue scale was developed for participants to rate their mood and cognition at each session. The first offering of the BFP began in 9/2012 and served 16 PWD at two sites, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center (WFBMC, N=6) and a nearby Adult Day Center (ADC, N=10). Participants who came to the first session had an average attendance of 70% for the WFBMC group and 84% for the ADC group. Participants were able and willing to complete the MoCA, GDS, and the 4-item scale. The mean MoCA score was 12 (SD=3.4, range 7–18) and the mean GDS 2.3 (SD=1.7, range 0–5). Self-rated mood and cognition was consistent over the course of the program. Average mean scores at the beginning and end of the program for “How do you feel about your life?” were 4.95 and 5.06 respectively; and “How do you think your memory is compared to others?” were 3.70 and 3.88. Running a cognitive support program for PWD concurrently with a CG support group is feasible and well received by families affected by dementia. This program enhanced the comprehensiveness of mental health services offered. More data are needed on the efficacy of this program (e.g., potential effects on mood and cognition).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.020 | 0.004 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".