Hypnosis Intervention for Couples Confronted with Alzheimer's Disease: Promising Results of a First Exploratory Study.

BACKGROUND: Dementia has a negative impact on the quality of life of the person with dementia and their spouse caregivers, as well as on the couple's relationship, which can lead to high levels of distress for both partners. Hypnosis has been shown to be effective in managing distress and increasing the quality of the relationship. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to develop a standardized hypnosis intervention for couples confronted with Alzheimer's disease and evaluate its feasibility, acceptability, and helpfulness in managing the distress of both partners and increasing the quality of the relationship. METHODS: In a single-arm study, sixteen couples received the 8-week intervention. Qualitative and quantitative assessments were conducted pre- and post-intervention as well as three months after. RESULTS: 88.9% of couples (n = 16) of the final sample (n = 18) completed the intervention. Despite the negative representations of hypnosis, several factors led couples to accept to participate in this study: positive expectations, professional endorsement, medical application, non-drug approach, home-based, free, flexible, and couple-based intervention. The results showed a significant decrease in distress for both partners. These effects were maintained three months after the intervention. Couples felt more relaxed, had fewer negative emotions, accepted difficulties more easily, were more patient, and reported better communication and more affection in the relationship. CONCLUSION: Overall, this pilot study shows the feasibility and acceptability of hypnosis with couples confronted with Alzheimer's disease. Although measures of the preliminary pre- and post-intervention effects are encouraging, confirmatory testing with a randomized controlled trial is needed.

Use of hypnosis in the field of dementia: A scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Dementia has negative implications for the quality of life of person and lead to situations of distress. Hypnosis is effective in several health domains but its use in people with dementia is debated. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to scope the research activity on the use of hypnosis with persons with dementia to manage their distress, symptoms or daily life. METHOD: We used five international databases: PubMed/Medline, the Cochrane Library, ScienceDirect, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar. RESULTS: Only seven articles were listed and three articles described the same longitudinal pilot study. Hypnosis was used either in one or several sessions, alone or as an adjunct and reinforced with daily self-hypnosis with or without audio tapes in people with dementia. The results show that they experienced moderate-to-high hypnotizability, but some adaptations were needed given their attention disabilities. They showed benefit on symptoms.  Nevertheless, some methodological weaknesses such as small heterogeneous samples, the use of non-validated tools for hypnotizability or outcomes, or the insufficient definition of the content of sessions limit the scope of the results. CONCLUSION: Hypnosis seems feasible and acceptable for people with dementia and could provide interesting clinical benefits, but a randomized controlled trial with a large homogeneous sample would be highly informative.