NCT05030285

Telehealth Psychotherapy for Anxiety in Persons With Cognitive Impairment

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 10 (actual)
• Sponsor: The University of Queensland · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This project will pilot a tailored Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) intervention delivered via telehealth videoconferencing (Tele-CBT) to reduce anxiety in people living with cognitive impairment. A process evaluation will inform its feasibility and implementation in the community nation-wide.

Detailed description

Anxiety is a pre-existing mental health issue in older persons with cognitive impairment (includes people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia), with considerably high prevalence (14%) as compared to older persons in the general population (3%). Anxiety results in accelerated cognitive decline, increased aggressive behaviours, and even an increased risk of suicide. Anxiety also negatively influences quality of life (QoL) of the individual with cognitive impairment and their care partner, increases early institutionalisation, and amplifies economic burden. The Tele-CBT package used in this study is a modification of existing manualised psychotherapeutic interventions for treatment of anxiety in people with Parkinson's disease and older adults with cognitive impairment. This new package incorporates techniques tailored to reduce anxiety in people with cognitive impairment, including symptom monitoring. The interventions will include various psychological techniques aimed at reducing anxiety and stress. The intervention consists of 6 weekly psychotherapy sessions. Each therapy session lasts between 30-60 minutes, depending on the participants' capacity to actively participate in session and on their cognitive functioning (e.g. complex attention, executive function). Support persons will be invited and instructed to actively engage in the therapy sessions as well as in between-session home tasks to support the person with cognitive impairment. These techniques will be facilitated via the use of non-immersive videos in telehealth videoconferencing.

Conditions

• Psychotherapy
• Cognitive Impairment
• Anxiety

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)	The CBT intervention includes 6 sessions via video-conferencing that has been tailored for people living with cognitive impairment. The sessions incorporate the use of psychoeducation and relaxation videos to improve home-based practise for long-term outcomes.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-09-21
• Primary completion: 2022-07-16
• Completion: 2022-07-16
• First posted: 2021-09-01
• Last updated: 2025-07-24

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Australia