Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurocognitive disorder common in the elderly and is associated with aging. It is an irreversible, gradual brain disorder that affects almost 5.1 million Americans. It progressively impairs brain function, resulting in cognitive decline, which manifests with memory loss, impaired executive function, and language difficulties. Patients with AD also have behavioral and psychiatric disorders like depression, agitation, and delusions and experience deterioration in functional status (Breijyeh & Karaman, 2020). In over 90% of persons with AD, symptoms are not usually evident until after 60 years, and the incidence of the disorder increases with age. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a solution in literature, and explore how it is incorporated into policy, barriers to implementation, and funding options.
AD is associated with adverse effects on affected persons like short-term memory loss, poor judgment, language dysfunction, impaired reasoning, visuospatial dysfunction, and challenges in managing complex tasks. The available pharmacological therapies for AD act by only slowing or reversing AD progression but do not reverse the impact of cognitive decline (Breijyeh & Karaman, 2020). The therapies previously proposed for AD treatment have mostly had disappointing outcomes. As a result, literature has suggested cognitive training as a non-pharmacological intervention to improve cognition in AD patients.
Cognitive training entails a sequence of standardized tasks like memory, attention, or problem-solving and has intrinsic challenges that target particular cognitive domains. Kang et al. (2019) established that cognitive training could benefit individuals with early AD, which is associated with positive effects in mild and moderate AD. Cognitive training benefited the general cognitive functions in the early stage of AD. Butler et al. (2018) established that cognitive training in older adults with normal cognition enhances cognitive performance in the domain trained.
Order a well-written high-quality paper now!
There have been attempts to integrate the cognitive training solution into public policy through the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA). On January 4, 2011, President Barack Obama signed NAPA into law. NAPA calls for the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to launch the National Alzheimer’s Project to develop and sustain an integrated national plan to address AD (ASPE, 2021). The Secretary of the HHS is also required to coordinate AD research and services across all federal agencies and speed up the development of therapies that may prevent, stop, or reverse the course of AD (ASPE, 2021). The policy is expected to enhance early diagnosis and coordination of care and treatment of AD and to improve outcomes for ethnic and racial minority populations at a higher risk for AD.
NAPA creates a vital opportunity to build upon and control HHS programs and other federal initiatives to change the course of AD. The policy requires the HHS to prioritize expanding, coordinating, and condensing programs to improve the health outcomes of AD patients and lower the financial burden of AD on patients, their families, and society (ASPE, 2021). It offers a significant opportunity to address the numerous challenges individuals with AD and their families face.
The implementation of cognitive training in AD has met various barriers that have hindered attaining the desired outcome in patients with mild and moderate AD. One of the barriers is the widespread social stigma and misconceptions associated with AD. This profoundly affects the care provided to AD patients, and individuals with mild and moderate AD tend to decline in engaging in cognitive training due to stigma (van Dam et al., 2022). In addition, the lack of adequate health professionals to conduct the cognitive training hinders many individuals who are candidates for the intervention from accessing the service. Thus, more health professionals need to be trained in providing cognitive training to increase the number of people who access the training.
Limited time is a significant barrier to implementing cognitive training, which usually requires a lot of time for training and follow-up. Besides, the workloads for mental health provide
Struggling with online classes or exams? Get expert help to ace your coursework, assignments, and tests stress-free!