All about Cognitive Stimulation Therapy

1. COGNITIVE STIMULATION THERAPY
A STRUCTURED PROGRAMME THEME

2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
• Cognitive skills are the skills the brain uses to think, learn, remember, give reason problem solve and communicate.
• There are a number approaches to help people with dementia improve their memory and thinking skills and to cope
with memory loss, one of these is Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST).
• Cognitive stimulation therapy or CST is a non-pharmacological, evidence-based, approach to treat the complex
behavioral and psychological symptoms (BPSD) seen in patients with dementia.
• BPSD can range from mood changes, disruptive behaviors, hallucinations, aggression, agitation, sleep disturbance,
motor changes, apathy, depression, and memory loss.

3. HISTORY
• CST was developed in the UK by Dr. Spector and her team.
• It is recognized by The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence ( NICE, UK) as an evidence-
based psychosocial intervention for the management of mild to moderate dementia which helps to
improve patient confidence, cognition, social interaction, and quality of life.
• CST relies on enhancing implicit memory in patients.

4. PRINCIPLES
• The main principle of CST is to offer activities that are
• Fun
• Patient-centric
• Mentally stimulating..
• The activities selected should be meaningful to the patient and help them to enhance memory,
reasoning, and language.

5. ADMINISTRATION
• This program is offered for seven weeks duration for a total of 14 sessions.
• Patient have to be grouped. Each group consists maximum of 4-8 sessions
• For Every seven weeks they have to be programmed in a structured theme
• Each week is themed and topics covered are themed
• Childhood memories,
• Food
• Current events to activities like baking, word search, etc.
• The sessions usually start with a warm-up song, group welcome, and utilize a reality orientation board with
group information which helps to maintain continuity between the sessions.
• Participants are encouraged to provide their inputs on group activities and themes to make the sessions
personable

6. VARIATIONS OF CST
• CaRroup based theme
• Individual based theme
• Maintained CST (26 weekly sessions)
• Exercised based
• Spiritual CST
• Care giver group

7. ELIGIBILITY
• Physician confirmed diagnosis of dementia
• Available caregiver
• No physical limitations that would impact patient's participation
• Ability to communicate, socially engage for at least 45 minutes
• A score of 24 or less on the SLUMS ( Saint Louis university Mental Status Exam).

8. BENEFITS
• CST helps improve patients living with Dementia improve their language skills thus having a positive
effect on their ability to communicate.
• CST is cost effective and easy to administer.
• A study conducted to see the effect of CST on patients with vascular dementia, treatment with CST
demonstrated improvement in general cognition and short term memory
• Group based therapy helps in socialization thus helping with loneliness, despair, improving overall mood
and thus improving quality of life.
• Combination of Acetylcholine treatment ( ACH) with CST has shown greater improvement in cognition
than CST alone.

9. RESEARCH EVIDENCE
• On various research It has been studied that CST has improved the cognitive skills and quality of life

10. CONCLUSION
• It can be applied by care givers, nurses, professionals etc.
• There also Training institute providing programmes for CST called CSTTI
• It can also be used for other Mental health Disorders like
• Schizophrenia
• Depression
• Mainly for Neurotic disorders