Journal of Alzheimers Disease & Parkinsonism
Open Access

Research Article

Improving Daily Life Skills in People with Dementia: Testing the STOMP Intervention Model

Carrie A Ciro^1*, Hanh Dung Dao², Michael Anderson², Cynthia A Robinson¹, Toby Ballou Hamilton¹ and Linda A Hershey³

¹Department of Rehabilitation Science, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center 1200 Stonewall Avenue, Oklahoma City, USA

²Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 801 NE 13th Street, CHB 309, Oklahoma City, USA

³Department of Neurology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 825 NE 10th Street, Suite 5200, Oklahoma City, USA

Corresponding Author:

Carrie A. Ciro, Assistant Professor
Department of Geriatric Mental Health1Department of Rehabilitation Science
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center 1200 Stonewall Avenue
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73117
Tel: 405-271-2331
E-mail: Carrie-ciro@ouhsc.edu

Received date:April 29, 2014; Accepted date:October 17, 2014; Published date: October 24, 2014

Citation: Ciro CA, Dung Dao H, Anderson M, Robinson CA, Hamilton TB et al. (2014) Improving Daily Life Skills in People with Dementia: Testing the STOMP Intervention Model. J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism 4:165. doi: 10.4172/2161-0460.1000165

Copyright: 2014. Carrie AC et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

People with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias suffer inevitable losses in the performance of daily life activities. Emerging research demonstrates that improvement in performance may be achievable, yet clinicians lack a standardized approach for evaluation, planning and implementation. The STOMP intervention (Skill-building through Task-Oriented Motor Practice) was created using current knowledge of teaching new behaviours through motor learning principles and task-dependent neuroplasticity which occurs through mass practice and task-specific training. In this quasi-experimental design, we sought to examine the feasibility of the techniques, tolerance of a mass practice schedule and efficacy of the intervention for improving performance in daily life skills and reducing caregiver burden. Our results indicated that participants not only improved in their performance of daily living skills but also maintained the improvement at the three- month follow-up. Mass practice schedules were tolerated by people with mild-moderate dementia. Caregiver burden was unchanged at either follow-up period. Future research examining the advantages conferred from delivering STOMP in the home environment is recommended

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