Evaluating the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on cognitive function and well-being in caregivers of persons with dementia and related neurodegenerative diseases
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Approximately 14.9% of Canadians aged 65 and older are living with cognitive impairment, including dementia, which means that there is likely an equal or even greater number of Canadians involved in their care. Relative to non-caregivers, caregivers of persons with dementia typically show more cognitive difficulties (e.g., executive function, memory), and report increased perceived stress, depression, and poor quality of life. The first aim of this dissertation was to compare caregivers’ cognitive and psychological function with that of non-caregiving older adults. The second aim was to assess whether a standardized mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) intervention could improve cognitive function and well-being in caregivers, compared to a psychoeducational control group. In Study 1, 57 older adult caregivers completed an assessment of cognitive and psychosocial functioning. Their performance was compared with that of 97 healthy, non-caregiving older adults who completed a similar battery of measures. It was hypothesized that caregivers would show decreased performance on measures of cognitive function, as well as significantly poorer psychosocial outcomes relative to the non-caregiver group. In Study 2, caregivers were randomized into an eight week MBSR program (n = 33) or a psychoeducation control group (n = 24). At post-program, all participants completed a re-assessment of cognitive and psychosocial functioning. Results of Study 1 showed that relative to non-caregivers, caregivers made significantly more errors on a measure of cognitive flexibility, generated fewer words on measures of phonemic fluency and semantic fluency, and learned significantly fewer words on a list learning task. Caregivers also reported significantly more stress and depressive symptoms, and reported lower quality of life. Results of Study 2 showed that post-intervention cognitive performance did not significantly differ as a function of group assignment. However, participants in the MBSR group showed a significantly larger reduction in depression and perceived stress relative to controls. Results of this RCT provide preliminary evidence for the selective benefits of MBSR relative to psychoeducation in a group of older caregivers of individuals with dementia.
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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 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
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".