Predictors of Quality of Life in Dementia (QoLCog Study)
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
Most people agree that the term Quality of Life (QoL) includes the concept whether one's life meets 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. Not surprisingly, over the last decade, QoL has been recognized as an important outcome measure in the field of dementia.
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.
