Interaction ‘helps dementia patients’

♦ Just one hour of social interaction per week can improve the quality of life of dementia patients, a study by King’s College London found.

A large-scale trial concluded that increasing the amount of interaction reduced agitation and aggression in people with dementia when combined with personalised care, as well as improving quality of life generally and saving money.

Previous research has found that in many care homes, residents have as little as two minutes of social interaction per day. The research, which was led by the University of Exeter, King’s College London and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, trained key care home staff to deliver person-centred care, such as talking to residents about their interests.

The trial involved more than 800 people with dementia in 69 care homes in London and Buckinghamshire. The study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research and is published in the journal PLOS Medicine.