Predictors of Quality of Life in Dementia (QoLCog Study)
Most people agree that the term Quality of Life (QoL) includes the concept of whether your life meets your expectations. QoL has become a widely used term both within medical research and practice. The potential to 'measure' it has become apparent and central to the evaluation of interventions in a range of settings. Improving a person's QoL is a fundamental goal for practitioners and service providers. As such, interest in the identification of factors which impact a person's QoL is extremely topical within academic and practice based research.
The QoLCog study aims to improve understanding of the impact of cognitive problems, like forgetfulness, on Quality of Life (QoL) as experienced by people with dementia and by their carers. The QoLCog study also aims to increase our understanding whether worsening of cognitive problems over time (and other problems, such as carer stress, associated with Alzheimer’s disease) has a negative impact on how QoL is experienced and rated by elderly people with dementia and by their carers. By improving our understanding of the factors that influence QoL in dementia we may be able to maintain or improve the long term health outcomes of people with AD and their carers.
Aims
- Determine whether cognitive impairment is significantly related to QoL as experienced by older people with mild to moderate dementia of the Alzheimer's type,
- Determine whether decline in cognitive function is related to change in QoL as experienced by older people with Alzheimer's disease over time.
Background
Assessment of QoL in people with dementia is not straightforward. At first, the study of QoL in the field of dementia remained poorly developed due to the assumption that people with dementia were not able to reliably report their QoL. More recently, and contrary to this assumption, several studies have demonstrated that older people with cognitive impairments are able to rate their QoL. However, what remain unclear are the factors that mediate change in QoL over time.
The current QoLCog research is being conducted with the purpose of examining the relationship between cognitive impairment and QoL for people with Alzheimer's disease. It will take place through two inter-related studies (cross-sectional and longitudinal).
Timeline
This project is currently recruiting participants (until December 2008). Follow-up of participants will continue until mid 2010.
Chief Investigators
Further Information
For more information about this study, please contact Ms Pascalle Bosboom.
