Cognitive rehabilitation can help people with dementia overcome everyday barriers

There were consistent, large, positive effects of CR relative to control (usual care) in all measures of the primary outcome, which was functional ability in relation to the activities directly targeted in the intervention. These results indicated with high certainty that people with mild or moderate dementia can make reliable improvements in functioning in relation to their personal rehabilitation goals, as rated by themselves and by the care partner or other informant.

Regarding participants with dementia at the end of treatment, there was high-certainty evidence for a small positive effect of CR on participants’ self-efficacy and immediate recall. There was also moderate-certainty evidence indicating negligible effects on participants’ anxiety, quality of life and sustained attention, and low-certainty evidence indicating negligible effects on general functional ability, memory and delayed recall.