Impact and benefits of treating hearing and vision problems for people living with Dementia

Hearing and vision impairments cause difficulties with daily living activities for people living with dementia and impact on communication.

The SENSE-Cog Sensory Intervention is a novel sensory remediation intervention for people with dementia who also experience hearing and / or vision loss. The sensory intervention is currently being empirically tested for efficacy in a large scale RCT which is comparing outcomes for those who receive the intervention against those who receive care as usual. The sensory intervention is comprised of several interacting components including assessment for and provision of corrective sensory devices (hearing aids and / or glasses lenses) by audiology / optometry professionals, and input over 10 visits from a novel ‘sensory support therapist’ to support adoption of the devices into everyday life.

In this MICRA seminar, we will talk about our work from the SENSE-cog project (http://www.sense-cog.eu/), case studies of the first participants who have received the sensory intervention will be presented in order to contextualise the intervention within people with dementia's lives and stimulate discussion about its scope with this varied population. Also our SENSE-Cog care home study is looking into moving forward and adapting the sensory intervention into people with dementia with hearing and sensory impairments living in residential aged care facilities both UK and internationally. Currently, knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) surveys are being completed in residential aged care homes and dementia specialist care homes to explore the detection and management of hearing and vision impairments in people with dementia in residential aged care facilities. The study intends to continue exploring this through focus groups and would like your input into how we can move forward in adapting the intervention for care home settings.

Speakers

Professor Iracema Leroi

Iracema Leroi is a Professor of Psychiatry in Aging and Dementia at the University of Manchester and an honorary consultant psychiatrist at Greater Manchester NHS Foundation Trust. Professor Leroi is the lead Investigator for SENSE-Cog. She leads the clinical dementia research group at the university and is Director of the Greater Manchester Dementia Research Centre, which focuses on clinical dementia research in the NHS. She trained in Canada and at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the USA. She moved to the UK in 2002 to continue her work in the mental health and cognitive aspects of Parkinson’s disease and other dementias.

Emma Hooper

Emma is an occupational therapist who has worked with people who are living with dementia since 2002. She is passionate about finding ways to support people with dementia to live their lives to the optimum. She is the Senior Sensory Therapist on the SENSE-Cog trial and has been involved in the study since 2017, initially field-testing and refining the Sensory Intervention through a field trial, and more recently delivering the intervention in the RCT whilst also training and supporting the sensory therapists in the other study sites.

Nisha Chauhan

Nisha Chauhan (Research Assistant). Nisha has recently joined the SENSE-Cog team, and she is assisting the SENSE-Cog care home study. She has worked in various dementia, learning disability and mental health services since 2011.

Outputs

• Piers Dawes introduction
• Misha Chauhan presentation
• Emma Hooper presentation
• Professor Ira Leroi presentation

Seminar video

Listen to our guest speakers talk about their experiences at last year's seminar.