Understanding and treating social functioning impairment in dementia

Dr Andrew Sommerlad and Professor Gill Livingston (UCL Psychiatry) are collaborating with Osaka University to research the social and behavioural effects of dementia.

Dementia often profoundly impairs social functioning, providing great stress to individuals and their families. Currently, there are no effective treatments to prevent or improve this aspect of dementia, a condition which affects at least 850,000 people in the UK and six million people in Japan – numbers that are predicted to rise substantially in coming years due to ageing populations.

To address this urgent need to understand the social and behavioural effects of dementia, and to develop therapeutic approaches and effective treatments, Dr Andrew Sommerlad and Professor Gill Livingston (UCL Division of Psychiatry) are leading a collaboration with researchers at Osaka University (OU), supported by the UCL-OU Strategic Partner Funds.

The researchers’ key areas of interest are how people with dementia experience social functioning impairment, the potential use and evaluation of humanoid robotics and other technologies for supporting social functioning in people with dementia, and novel psychosocial interventions designed to address the impairment in social cognition caused by neurodegenerative disease, which can be distressing for people with dementia and their family members.

The researchers have been able to deepen their shared research activity through a number of visits. Most recently in March 2023, five OU researchers attended a range of meetings and events with UCL researchers to discuss topics including social functioning and insight in dementia, late-stage onset psychosis, dementia with Lewy bodies, biomarkers and technology, idiopathic normal-pressure hydrocephalus and psychopharmacology.

The OU researchers (Dr Maki Suzuki, Dr Hideki Kanemoto, Professor Manabu Ikeda, Dr Yuto Satake and Dr Takashi Suehiro), also attended the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Annual Old Age Psychiatry Conference and visited PEARL (Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory), a facility that can mimic a wide range of urban systems, providing the unique opportunity to study how people interact in different environments.

The visit built on a previous visit in February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic, when Dr Kanemoto visited UCL to discuss shared goals in dementia research. The collaboration will be sustained by future activities including a symposium at the International Psychogeriatrics Conference in Lisbon, Portugal in June 2023 at which researchers from the collaboration will share their research.

Dr Sommerlad said: “After successfully collaborating with academics at OU for dementia research over the past few years, we were delighted to get a UCL Global Engagement grant to help strengthen the links. Our opportunities to meet in-person at UCL, and soon again in Lisbon, are helping us to learn more about our departments’ shared research interests, bring other academics into the collaboration, and showcase our collaboration. Dementia is a priority research area at UCL and in Japan, and we are benefitting from learning from each other to improve our research and care.”

The UCL and OU researchers are now planning to further develop integrated research proposals on several aspects of dementia prevention, treatment and care. Their ongoing collaboration is expanding UCL and OU’s shared skills and expertise in mutual areas of interest, including neuroscience and psychosocial interventions for dementia, and deepens the strong partnership between the two institutions.

More information

• UCL-Osaka collaboration on dementia care strengthens with Dr Kanemoto visit
• ‘Hope during turbulent times’: UCL’s pioneering work with Japan
• UCL Division of Psychiatry
• UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences
• Dr Andrew Sommerlad academic profile
• Professor Gill Livingston academic profile
• PEARL (Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory)