Development of Cognitive Interventional Therapy Program for Mild Cognitive Impairment: Preliminary Study

Objective: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is considered a pre-stage of dementia. This study aims to develop a cognitive intervention treatment program (CITP) as a non-pharmacological therapy, apply this program into MCI patients, and examine patients’ changes in cognitive function. Methods: Among 16 patients with MCI, 10 patients were randomly assigned to the experimental group and 6 patients were assigned into the control group. The patients assigned to the experimental group participated in the CITP once a week for a period of 15 weeks. The control group were suggested to live a normal daily life without CITP given. After 15 weeks (3 months), pre- and post-investigations, such as cognitive function test, emotional test, brain oxygen saturation test, were conducted and compared for each group. Results: The cognitive function scores and the brain oxygen saturation levels taken during the Verbal Fluency Test showed a statistically significant difference between those of experimental and the control groups. To be specific, while the cognitive function score improved in the experimental group, there was a decline in the control group. There was no statistically significant difference in emotional changes between two groups. Looking at the changes within each group, the overall cognitive function score of the experimental group was significantly increased, but no pre- and post-significantly changes were observed in brain oxygen saturation activation. On the other hand, the control group showed a statistically significant decline in the attention criteria of the cognitive functional areas, and no statistically significant changed in brain activation. Conclusion: The result from this study has given some promising views on maintaining and improving the deteriorating cognitive function in patients with MCI. Conducting CITP on patients is expected to strengthen the neural network. Eventually, there would be a less deterioration of cognitive function and less progression of MCI into dementia.