0-TESTO COMPLETO.pdf - Fondazione Santa Lucia

Sezione III: Attività per progetti
cious and specific treatment of patients who will develop the different types of
dementia.
This project will also suggest the potential role of cognitive rehabilitation
therapy and caregivers support on the cognitive and behavioural symptom
progression of MCI.
To obtain this result potentially means a reduced cost of the management
of dementia for the national health service and a better outcome of the illness
for patients.
OUTPUT(S) OF THE PROJECT
An improvement in the capability to predict the clinical evolution of the
classic subtypes of MCI through their reclassification is expected, keeping in
mind the behavioural and social parameters that have never been considered
before for diagnostic purposes. In this way the MCI-dementia conversion
could be predicted with greater specificity for each subtype of neurodegenerative
dementia. The clinical evolution of the sample treated with cognitive
rehabilitation could indicate if a controlled scientific trial would be useful.
These outputs will be reached at the end of the 18-months follow-up period.
New cognitive rehabilitation strategies for patients with MCI will be
developed by using a set of specifically devised memory and attention computerized
tasks. This will permit to extend the cognitive rehabilitation intervention
outside the hospital, allowing the availability of a more extensive and
less expensive rehabilitative training for patients at risk of dementia. The
development of new cognitive rehabilitation protocols will be obtained within
the first 6 months of the project. Results on the effectiveness of the cognitive
rehabilitation therapy on the MCI-dementia conversion rate will be achieved
at the end of the follow-up period.
Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of a support program for MCI
caregivers will be obtained. The program will provide caregivers active
involvement through knowledge, emotions and problems sharing and
resources enhancement giving rise to a support network in which technique
and humanization might contribute to delay illness progression. The output
of this strategy regarding the MCI-dementia conversion rate will be reached at
the end of the project.
MILESTONES ALONGSIDE THE PROJECT
1. To build a network among all the participating units in order to permit
a correct flow of communication.
2. To train all the professionals participating in the projects to administer
the rating scales and to measure the inter-rater reliability.
3. To enrol all 100 MCI patients as defined by the project program.
4. To sub-classify the MCI subtypes on the basis of the defined criteria.
5. To measure the validity of the new sub-classification of the MCI subtypes
on the basis of the behavioural markers.
720 2009