Portable EEG guided meditation for people with mild to moderate dementia: feasibility exploration

Abstract

Purpose To explore the feasibility of portable EEG headband-guided meditation for people with mild to moderate dementia and examine the preliminary efficacy in relieving psychological distress among them. Method A Phase II clinical trial with a two-arm experimental pre-post assessments design was conducted. Convenience sampling was used to recruit people with mild to moderate dementia who were able to communicate. Participants were randomly allocated to the intervention or control group. The intervention group received a 10-minute EEG headband-guided meditation session. The control group only received a 10-minute resting test with the EEG headband. Psychological distress was measured with the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 before and after the meditation session. Descriptive statistics and t-test were used to analyze the baseline characteristics. Generalized estimating equations were used to analyze the preliminary efficacy of EEG headband-guided meditation. Results and Discussion Fifty-seven participants consented to participate in this study, with 29 of them randomized to the intervention and 28 to the control group. The average age of participants was 81.65 (8.56). The EEG headband-guided meditation was feasible to be implemented among people with mild to moderate dementia, with all the participants finishing the sessions successfully. No side effect was reported by the participants. The group-by-time interaction effect on improving the depressive symptoms of people with dementia was statistically significant (Wald Chi-square=4.316, p=.038), with the intervention group showing more improvement. However, the efficacy of improving stress and anxiety or the total score of psychological distress was not statistically significant. Our results indicate that EEG headband-guided meditation has the potential to improve depressive symptoms of people with dementia. Longer duration and higher intensity of the intervention are suggested for improvements in stress and anxiety (Li & Bressington, 2019).