The talk provided will describe an experience of working on a national research study into the effects of cognitive rehabilitation for people with Alzheimer’s disease, and related dementia’s. The study called GREAT, overseen by Exeter University and Professor Linda Clare, was conducted over 4 years with about 445 people across 8 sites in Great Britain. A method of goal setting was used where participants rated themselves in doing their goals at the beginning and then the end of therapy. The main approaches used in the once a week therapy over 10 sessions (plus 4 maintenance sessions) were compensatory and restorative. These enabled people to re-learn everyday skills that were important to them, or to learn methods to start new activities. Lessons were also learned about the challenges in achieving improvements.
