More Regular Meals May Improve Dementia Care THURSDAY, Feb. 28
(HealthDay News) -- Helping people with dementia to eat more
regularly improves their physical health and may lower symptoms
of depression, a small new study from Taiwan suggests. The
research included 63 dementia patients who were trained to
remember proper eating habits and 27 patients who received usual
care. The memory training used a method called spaced retrieval,
which requires people to recall a piece of information over
increasingly longer time intervals. Another memory-training tool
involved practicing tasks associated with daily living. The
patients underwent tests for nutrition, body-mass index (a
measurement of body fat based on height and weight) and
depression before the start of the study and again six months
later. People who underwent the combination memory training
showed improved nutrition and a healthy increase in body-mass
index, as well as reduced depression scores, according to the
study published online Feb. 28 in the Jour