Mindfulness Research Program: Designed to Enhance Wellbeing in People Living With Dementia and Their Spouses

Overview

People with dementia forget things and have trouble concentrating. In addition, they and their caregivers can become depressed. This project will show whether Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) can lessen depression, increase attention spans and improve quality of life for those affected by the disease and their caregivers. MBCT combines intensive training in mindfulness meditation with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Studies show the meditation component creates changes in areas of the brain associated with our ability to pay attention. This form of meditation can help those impacted by dementia become more aware of their depressive thinking, leading to improved ways of coping. The investigators predict that individuals in the early stages of dementia and their spousal caregivers will report fewer depression symptoms following the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) Program, as well as experience improvements in quality of life and daily mindfulness. If successful, MBCT could improve the quality of life in individuals with dementia and their caregivers, as well as may take pressure off the health care system by delaying institutionalization.

The overall objective of the proposed study is to investigate the efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) to alleviate depression symptoms, increase attention abilities, and improve quality of life in individuals with dementia and their caregivers. MBCT works to help individuals increase concentration and increase awareness of depressive thinking to ultimately provide a better means of coping and emotional regulation. While dementia is non-reversible and progressive in nature, supportive interventions, especially at the early stage of the disease, can make life more manageable for both dementia individuals and their caregivers. Along with the initial signs of forgetfulness and concentration difficulties, it is common for both individuals with dementia and their primary caregivers to also experience depression symptoms. For dementia individuals, depression symptoms are common early on as they still have insight into their disease. This increase in depression has been shown to be related to apathy, overall poorer quality of life and cognitive decline. Caregivers not only witness a significant change in daily functioning of someone they love and know well, they are also faced with new responsibilities associated with managing the disease, while simultaneously trying to juggling their own day-to-day tasks. These drastic changes and increased responsibilities have been shown to increase feelings of depression and burden, resulting in coping-related problems in caregivers. Counseling intervention in early stages of dementia has been shown to delay and even decrease patient admittance into long-term facilities, ultimately relieving stress placed on the healthcare system. MBCT is a specific program designed to, and proven successful at, treating various populations with recurrent depression. With its unique therapeutic approach of integrating intensive training in mindfulness meditation with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, MBCT helps individuals pay greater attention, increase concentration, increase awareness of depressive thinking and learn to apply more skillful means of coping. In addition to treating depression, the meditation component of MBCT has also been shown to improve various aspects of attention and result in changes in neural networks implicated in attention processes. The investigators predict that MBCT will alleviate depression symptoms and increase quality of life in both patients and caregivers. The investigators also expect that individuals will experience improvements in attention and memory abilities. If successful, MBCT could improve overall quality of life in dementia individuals and caregivers, as well as benefit our healthcare system by delaying institutionalization. From a research perspective, success of this program may lead to a larger clinical controlled trial to further investigate the efficacy of MBCT in individuals affected by dementia.