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Learning and Practice in Alzheimer’s Dementia: What Skill Science Offers Patients and Caregivers
By Brian Paquette, DO, MPH
What the science of practice and the brain’s ability to adapt can offer those with Alzheimer’s- A must read for patients and caregivers.
Memory loss does not mean that learning has stopped. People with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease can still improve specific everyday tasks when practice is structured, supported, and aimed at a goal they have chosen. That conclusion rests on randomized trials, not on hope, and it comes with a clear limit: none of these approaches has been shown to slow, stop, or reverse the underlying disease.[1,2]
This article brings together two bodies of research that are rarely read side by side. The first is the science of skill acquisition, which explains how people at any age get better at a task through focused, guided repetition.[3,4] The second is dementia rehabilitation, which has tested whether those same principles still work once the brain’s learning systems are impaired.[1,2,5,6] The practical message is encouraging and specific: choose a task that matters, practice that task in a way that avoids mistakes, and judge success by whether daily life gets easier.
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