A Rural Dementia-Friendly Village Project and Dementia Awareness, Cognition, and Depressive Symptom : A Preliminary Study

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: According to the 3rd Korean National Dementia Plan, the dementia-friendly community initiative was launched. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a rural dementia-friendly village project on the participants. METHODS: Jeollabukdo Provincial Dementia Center designated Sosu-maeul, located in Buan-gun Jeollabuk-do, as a rural dementia-friendly village. We conducted dementia partnership education, youth-elder matching activity, and cognitive enhancing program. The efficacy of this project was evaluated by the changes in dementia awareness, cognitive function, and depressive symptoms. We used dementia awareness questionnaire, Mini-Mental Status Examination for Dementia Screening (MMSE-DS), and Korean version of Short form of Geriatric Depression Scale (SGDS-K). RESULTS: This study was carried out with 24 residents in this community. There was no significant change in dementia awareness score between pre- and post-intervention (p=0.25). MMSE-DS score was significantly increased from 24.5 to 25.5 (p < 0.001) and SGDS-K score was statistically improved from 3.5 to 2.5 (p=0.04) after interventions. CONCLUSION: We Jeollabukdo Provincial Dementia Center carried out a pilot study of a rural dementia-friendly village project. This project led to improvements on cognitive functions and depressive symptoms in the participants. But the improvement of dementia awareness was not achieved. More direct and experiencing interventions for people with dementia are necessary to improve dementia awareness.