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Got It, Hide thisLeng M, Zhao Y, Wang Z Comparative efficacy of non-pharmacological interventions on agitation in people with dementia: A systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis. Int J Nurs Stud. 2020 Feb;102:103489.
In people with dementia, do nondrug interventions reduce agitation? Are some nondrug interventions better than others?
Agitation is common in people with dementia. Signs of agitation include pacing, restlessness, irritability, and sometimes physical or verbal outbursts. Agitation can be distressing for people with dementia and their caregivers.
Interventions that prevent or decrease agitation may reduce distress. This review looks at how different nondrug interventions compare with one another for managing agitation in people with dementia.
The researchers did a systematic review of studies available up to January 2019. They found 65 randomized controlled trials.
The key features of the studies were:
Compared with control interventions (also see Table below):
In an analysis that lets you compare interventions that were not directly compared with one another in the individual studies:
· massage therapy reduced agitation compared with light therapy, music therapy, or reminiscence therapy; and
· other nondrug interventions did not differ from one another.
In people with dementia, massage therapy, animal-assisted interventions, personally-tailored interventions, and pet robot interventions reduce agitation by a small-to-moderate amount.
Interventions | Number of trials (number of people per trial) | Effect† of intervention |
Music therapy | 16 trials (16 to 100 people) | No effect |
Personally tailored interventions | 14 trials (21 to 349 people) | Small reduction in agitation |
Massage therapy | 8 trials (35 to 56 people) | Moderate reduction in agitation |
Aromatherapy | 6 trials (28 to 72 people) | No effect |
Physical exercise interventions | 5 trials (27 to 116 people) | No effect |
Reminiscence therapy | 4 trials (24 to 304 people) | No effect |
Light therapy | 4 trials (48 to 94 people) | No effect |
Animal-assisted interventions | 4 trials (40 to 88 people) | Small reduction in agitation |
Pet robot interventions | 3 trials (24 to 275 people) | Small reduction in agitation |
Dementia-care mapping | 3 trials (192 to 435 people) | No effect |
Horticultural therapy | 2 trials (13 to 20 people) | No effect |
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