The University’s Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing (MICRA) is a leading research centre working to answer fundamental questions about ageing.

The institute hosted their latest seminar on treatment for Parkinson’s Disease. Professor Iracema Leroi, Dr Sheree McCormick and Ms Sabina Vatter from Division of Neuroscience and Experimental Psychology along with Mr Julio Vega from the School of Computer Science presented on Cognitive Stimulation Therapy for Parkinson’s Disease (CST-PD).

CST-PD is a new therapy that has been developed to address the mental and emotional challenges that can decrease quality of life for people with dementia and their companions. This involves engaging in structured, enjoyable activities that support memory, stimulate communication and enhance well-being.

The team recently investigated the feasibility of rolling out CST-PD as a large-scale study in UK. During the MICRA seminar they described the development of the therapy and presented the early findings from the pilot trial. The audience were invited to take part in an interactive session of CST-PD to gather their own views on therapy and how it might be improved. The audience gave feedback of their impressions of the strengths and weaknesses of technology/app based therapy, and what they felt were measures of success. The feedback from the session, together with the findings from the pilot CST-PD trial, will be used to further develop the intervention prior to a UK-wide randomised controlled trial. The audience expressed how much they’d enjoyed the interactive session, and the Q&A session also provided engaging and lively debate.