A preliminary study of the effects of early intervention with people with dementia and their families in a memory clinic

A brief individualized intervention comprising of information about diagnosis and prognosis, reinforcement of coping strategies, crisis prevention advice and memory management programmes was offered to newly diagnosed people with dementia and their families, prior to referral to the services of their local psychogeriatric community support team. The control group received diagnosis and written advice and were referred directly to their local psychogeriatric community support team. At 18-month follow-up, improvements were found in the memory scores of the experimental group. Carer wellbeing was worse in the control group and this was associated with an increased likelihood of the breakdown of home care. We suggest that psychosocial variables may be important at the time of diagnosis and note an interesting relationship between memory ability in people with dementia and carer strain. Our results can only be fully understood in the context of methodological improvements. These are outlined, for the purpose of future replication.