Award Date

5-15-2026

Degree Type

Doctoral Project

Degree Name

Occupational Therapy Doctorate

Department

Brain Health

First Committee Member

Sharon Jalene

Number of Pages

60

Abstract

Objective: Dementia is a global health concern due to the rapidly growing aging population (WHO, 2023). A wealth of evidence exists to support the notion that lifestyle interventions not only slow cognitive decline but improve cognition (Ngandu et al., 2015; Rosenberg et al.., 2018; Meng et al., 2022). However, there is a distinct lack of qualitative evidence examining the experience of being in a lifestyle redesign program. Lifestyle interventions require a large overhaul of an individual’s habits and performance patterns, and as such, there must be a subjective experience attached. Methodology: Through convenience sampling of the residents participating in the NEXUS program at SRRMCC, the WHO-5 was administered at week five and nine as well as semi-structured interviews at weeks five, seven and nine. Inductive thematic analysis and descriptive statistics were utilized to analyzed collected results. Findings: The NEXUS program has an overall positive effect on perceived well-being. Participants mainly attribute this to staff culture and frequent outings. Conclusion: There is a largely unstudied impact of entering a lifestyle redesign program, and this capstone is necessary to fill this gap in literature.

Keywords

Dementia; Lifestyle Interventions

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences | Occupational Therapy | Rehabilitation and Therapy

File Format

PDF

File Size

735 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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