Effect of intensive nursing intervention on recovery function of elderly patients with vascular dementia

Objective To discuss the effect of intensive nursing intervention on elderly patients with vascular dementia. Methods 216 senile cases with vascular dementia were randomly divided into 2 groups:intensive nursing group (n =116) and control group (n =100). Intensive group received 4-week rehabilitation training. The Mini-Mental State Examination( MMSE), the Hasegawa' s dementia Scale (HDS), the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale ( CDR), the Wechsler memory scale-revised in China for Adult ( WMS-RC ), the Blessed Dementia Scale( information-memory-concentration test, IMCT), the Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA),the Functional Activities Questionnaire (FAQ) and the Activity of Daily Living Scale (ADL) were applied at the beginning of the treatment and at the end of 4 weeks to evaluate the cognitive function and daily living ability.Results Scores of MMSE (19.86±3. 15), HDS (24.85 ±2.39), WMS-RC (62.24±8.71), IMCT (25.39±5.62) , FMA (68.71 ± 14. 18) and ADL (67.39 ± 14.29) of the patients in both groups at the end of 4 weeks showed significant difference (t =3.96, 6.09, 2.11, 3.83, 3.87, 6. 12, 3.06,9.54, respectively, P＜0. 01 or P ＜0. 05) ; CDR and FAQ of intensive nursing group was significantly reduced (t =2. 98,9. 49;P ＜0. 01 ) while that of control group was of no obvious difference (P ＞0. 05) ; the score improvement of 8 kinds of figures before and after treatment in rehabilitation training group was much greater than that in control group (P ＜ 0. 05 ). Conclusions Rehabilitation training can obviously improve the cognition and daily living ability of the senile patients with vascular dementia and it can also delay the dementia progress. Key words: Elderly;  Vascular dementia;  Intensive nursing intervention;  Functional recovery