professionals about social connections. We hope to answer the questions, ‘How can we measure social wellbeing for people living with mild cognitive impairment or dementia?’ and ‘What social factors are important to them?’. In 2022, we plan to explore what type and amount of social connections are protective against dementia and mortality. We also plan to look at the link between social
connections and brain health using brain scans from large datasets.
Staff Professor Perminder Sachdev Professor Henry Brodaty
Dr Suraj Samtani Dr Darren Lipnicki Dr Ben Lam Saly Mahalingam
Improving Social Health for People Living with Dementia In 2021, SHARED researchers pinpointed mechanisms to reduce loneliness and improve social participation and belonging for people with dementia. The review, published in Current Opinion in Psychiatry, used research published in Medline, Medline ePub ahead of print, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Emcare and Cochrane Library of peer-reviewed journal articles published between January 2019 and June 2020.
The review revealed that music and/or dance groups significantly improved social participation and belonging for people with dementia and can help to reduce loneliness. The review also addressed studies involving socially assistive robots and other technology, which produced mixed results but warrants further exploration. DOI: 10.1097/YCO.0000000000000683
“Previous reviews looking at social health interventions focused solely on healthy older adults, excluding people living with dementia,” said lead author Dr Suraj Samtani. “Other reviews focused on social connectedness as a protective factor and social isolation as a risk factor for cognitive decline or dementia in heathy older population.” “Also, most interventions for people living with dementia focus on improving cognitive function or physical health, with the social wellbeing of these people often neglected.” The review examined recent interventions with social health outcome measures, including interventions across multiple settings from communities to assisted living facilities.
STROKOG is an international consortium of longitudinal studies of cognitive disorders following stroke, TIA, or small vessel disease. Led by Professor Perminder Sachdev and developed under the auspices of VAS-COG (Society for the Study of Vascular Cognitive and Behavioural Disorders), it is the first international effort to harmonise work on poststroke dementia. Currently there are 35 international studies participating in STROKOG, which include the following countries: Australia, Bulgaria, China, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, South Korea, Nigeria, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, The Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, United Kingdom, and the USA.
Jess Lo Study Coordinator In 2021, the following new studies joined STROKOG: • PROCRAS from the Netherlands • Hallym VCI cohort from South Korea We published a paper in the Stroke journal titled ‘LongTerm Cognitive Decline After Stroke: An Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis’. The project was led by consortium co-ordinator Jess Lo and it included 9 STROKOG studies. We found that patients with stroke experience cognitive decline that is faster than that of stroke-free controls from 1 to 3 years after onset. An increased rate of decline is associated with older age and recurrent stroke.
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