Narrative review: recent advances in doll therapy for Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a severe neurodegenerative disease which impacts the quality of life in elderly patients and imposes a significant burden to families and caregivers. The prolonged life expectancy and rapidly increasing world population significantly increased the morbidity. Although it has been widely reported that the aggregation of Beta amyloid and neurofilaments is the most significant pathological change. Currently, there is no effective drug therapy for AD, and the potential risks of pharmacotherapy remain concerns. This article reviews the recent research on Doll therapy (DT), a widely used non-drug therapy on AD patients, especially its clinical effectiveness and precautions in treating AD, with an attempt to further alleviate the mental symptoms and improve the health status of AD patients. Thus, nonpharmacological treatments of AD have become an area of intense research interest in recent years. DT is a person-centered therapy that can improve both the mental and cognitive status and the quality of life in AD patients. Although there remains ethical controversy about the DT on AD patients, its positive effect has been proved. Moreover, a standards manual is required to stipulate the range of application, the time course for treatment and withdraw the toy from the patients.