Alzheimer’s disease is a complex cascade of brain dysfunction that results from a progressive deterioration of the brain and its structures. As the brain starts to fail, patients with Alzheimer’s will begin to have noticeable changes in their memory, behavior and mobility.
What is Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy?
Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy, or CRT, is a type of therapy offered to anyone suffering from brain trauma in an effort to restore a "normal life” for the patient and their family. Obviously, normal life is a term that can be very subjective depending on the severity of the case but here, it means that a person will be able to live relatively independently without too many constraints to their normal living.
This is a type of therapy that can be utilized for many different types of brain injury but more commonly, you will see doctors referring patients for this type of therapy after strokes, car accidents or in cases of degenerative diseases of the brain like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.
Depending on the patient's individual needs, sessions can vary in intensity, ranging from once a week to every day. There may be opportunities to conduct these courses in a group setting or one-on-one with a therapist. Because of the way these sessions are designed, patients can have CRT in any type of setting — a nursing home, a patient’s house, or at the location of the therapist depending on the mobility and ease of transport for the patient.
Those who complete the therapy attest that it is well worth the effort and the time to recover physical abilities and improve their quality of life.
Many patients and family members do complain, however, about payment issues for these services. Due to a lack of research on some of these different types of therapies, insurance companies are often quick to challenge the need for some of the types of therapy that are done and may refuse to pay for these services.
This can make it very frustrating and depressing for the family who is trying their best to organize these sessions while considering budgets, so please make sure to verify with your insurance provider prior to doing some of these therapies to not be on the hook for a large medical bill afterward.
Will CRT really be helpful for patients with Alzheimer’s?
Because of the complexity of what occurs within the brain, it is quite difficult to assess whether the CRT has improved the life of a patient over time as their brain progressively shrinks.
In one recent study done to try to prove just this, patients suffering from mild Alzheimer’s disease were observed and scored at time intervals of three months, six months and one year after starting Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy as well as one year after the therapy had finished. The type of course offered was a standard kind of therapy where participants had weekly home visits from therapists for a period of three, months followed by once-a-month telephone calls for the next nine months.
These findings are an obvious success story for CRT. Not only will patients who undergo this type of therapy have more independence compared to patients who do not have an opportunity to do these sessions, but the effects seem to last even after the sessions have finished.
Another important thing to highlight is the benefit to the caregiver. In most cases, when a patient is diagnosed with mild Alzheimer’s, they will still be living at home so the caregivers in this situation are typically the patient's spouse or adult children. This can be often a source of significant stress and anger, because family members feel exhausted and overwhelmed with this newfound responsibility.
You may think that if you were in this situation yourself, you would not find it to be a burden at all because of the love you have for this person but almost everyone will feel anger, frustration and helplessness at some point during the course of the disease. Feeling angry and frustrated does not mean that you do not love the patient; it is a very natural reaction.
If there is any way to reduce this type of burden, is in the best interest of everyone involved in the patient's care. Multiple studies show the importance of keeping a normal semblance of life for the patient for as long as possible to reduce the stress and anxiety that could occur if a patient is transplanted into a different environment.
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