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The National Service Framework for Older People states 'treatment for dementia always involves using non-pharmacological management strategies such as mental stimulation'.
Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST), delivered through groups, is an evidence-based approach for people with dementia. The CST group programme was developed from a Cochrane systematic review of psychological interventions for people with dementia (1) and consists of 14, 45-minute sessions twice weekly for seven weeks for groups of five to eight people with dementia.
201 people were recruited for this multi-centre RCT from 23 centres (2) and the results showed improvements in quality of life and cognition.
The economic analysis showed CST was cost-effective (3), and in terms of Numbers Needed to Treat the results for cognition compared favourably with trials of cholinesterase inhibitors for Alzheimer's disease.
CST was the only non-pharmacological therapy recommended for treating cognitive symptoms of dementia by the NICE guidelines (4) which advised that cognitive stimulation should be available to people with dementia, regardless of medication received.