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Nonpharmacologic Treatment of Behavioral Disorders in Dementia

  • DEMENTIA (E MCDADE, SECTION EDITOR)
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Opinion statement

Dementia symptoms are often complicated by behavioral disorders such as repetitive verbalizations, aggressive behavior, and pacing. In clinical practice, the most common responses to behavioral disorders are pharmacologic, mostly using antipsychotic medication, or ignoring the behavior. However, multiple research studies support the notion that these behavioral disorders in dementia are related to unmet needs that can be addressed by nonpharmacologic interventions. Persons with dementia present multiple unmet needs, most commonly pain and discomfort, need of social contact and support, and need of stimulation that alleviates boredom. A wide range of interventions that address these needs has been investigated, though the rigor of the investigations varied greatly depending on factors related to the behavioral disorder, setting, and resource limitations. In practice, the avenues to address the unmet needs should depend on the person’s abilities and preferences. Thus, nonpharmacologic interventions that are individually tailored to the person with dementia comprise a superior response to behavioral disorders and should be at the frontline of treatment of these disorders.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported in part by the Minerva-Stiftung Foundation grant no. 31583295000.

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Conflict of Interest

Jiska Cohen-Mansfield declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with animal subjects performed by the author. With regard to the author’s research cited in this paper, all procedures were followed in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 and 2008.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Promotion, School of Public Health, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, P.O.B. 39040, Tel-Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Jiska Cohen-Mansfield PhD

  2. Herczeg Institute on Aging, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel

    Jiska Cohen-Mansfield PhD

  3. Minerva Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of End of Life, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel

    Jiska Cohen-Mansfield PhD

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Cohen-Mansfield, J. Nonpharmacologic Treatment of Behavioral Disorders in Dementia. Curr Treat Options Neurol 15, 765–785 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11940-013-0257-2

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