Title: Dementia knowledge: A descriptive study

Biography:

Fahad Manee has completed his PhD at the age of 36 years from Texas Woman’s University majoring in Occupational Therapy. He is a Faculty of Allied Health Sciences in the Occupational Therapy Department at Kuwait University. He has published more than 7 papers in reputed peer review journals. He served as a chair of the Occupational Therapy Department.

Abstract

Rehabilitation professionals must be astute at recognizing, assessing, and treating individuals with cognitive deficits. No research is available to examine cognitive rehabilitation practices applied to individuals with neurological conditions in Kuwait. Objectives of this study were to identify the use of cognitive assessments, the availability of resources, and the barriers to cognitive rehabilitation practices in Kuwait. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with health care professionals working with adult individuals with neurological conditions. These professionals included occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists. Results of this study showed that the most commonly used cognitive based assessments are MMSE (41%), and MoCA and LOTCA (15.2%). The only clinical assessment used is the Line-Bisection Test (2.2%). The most used occupation-based assessments are FIM (6.5%), COPM (4.3%), the Interest Checklist (2.2%), and the Barthel Index (2.2%). Resources related to cognitive rehabilitation in Kuwait that are unavailable to practitioners include journal clubs (91%), special interest groups (89%), and continuing education programs (82.6%). Barriers to cognitive rehabilitation practice included lack of sufficient funds for continuing education, lack of time, lack of standardized assessments, and lack of interprofessional teamwork. Conclusion many adults in Kuwait live with cognitive impairment. There is a need to develop appropriate evidence-based cognitive rehabilitation clinical guidelines in Kuwait.