Quality of life and Alzheimer's disease: Influence of participation in a rehabilitation center.

Unlabelled: Quality of life is seldom explored in evaluations of therapeutic interventions in Alzheimer's disease.

Objective: To verify whether participation in a cognitive and functional rehabilitation program improves quality of life (QOL) among Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients.

Methods: 19 AD patients participated in this study, 12 of whom attended 24 multi-professional intervention sessions - the experimental group - whereas the remaining 7 comprised the control group. The following tools were used to assess changes: a) Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE); b) Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS); c) Quality of Life in AD evaluation scale (QOL-AD); d) Open question on QOL.

Results: Participation had no positive impact on quantitative clinical variables (MMSE, GDS, QOL-AD). The answers to the open question, examined using the Collective Subject Discourse (CSD) method, suggested that QOL improved after the intervention.

Conclusion: Combining pharmacological treatment with psychosocial intervention may prove to be an effective strategy to enhance the QOL of AD patients.