An empirical test of language-relevant interventions for dementia

The focus of this report is the treatment of persons with dementia who are of a non-English-speaking background (NESB). Noisemaking is one behavioral manifestation associated with severe dementia. It can have devastating effects on persons with dementia by limiting their access to activity programs and social interaction, and is also very distressing for professionals and family carers. It can be especially difficult for carers when they do not speak the first (non-English) language of the person with the noisemaking problem, when the person has lost his or her ability to speak English as the dementia progresses. Behavioral interventions have been found to be successful in decreasing the occurrence of noisemaking in some people with severe dementia. This article reports on a study of an elderly Italian woman with dementia. The study used a randomized, alternating-treatments design in order to determine whether an Italian-language intervention would be more effective in reducing her noisemaking than the same intervention given in English. The main result of the study was that the Italian intervention was found to be significantly more effective in reducing noisemaking than the English intervention. Therefore, this exploratory study provides empirical evidence for the increased effectiveness of an intervention program in the patient's original language. The study also demonstrates the need for individualized intervention programs, particularly for NESB patients living in predominantly English-speaking institutions.