Living with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)
HABIT Healthy Action to Benefit Independence & Thinking™
Welcome to the HABIT page for people living with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and program participants. The HABIT Program is for individuals with MCI and their loved ones to learn the best strategies for adapting, coping, and living their best lives with MCI.
Follow the HABIT page to receive updates and information about adjusting to MCI and combating dementia. Our goal is to connect you with others and provide you with information and support.
Last week, we shared with you facts about the need for more evidence-based interventions for Spanish speakers with a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In today's blog, we would like to update you on how recruitment for the pilot study on the Spanish translation and cultural adaptation of the Memory Support System (MSS) has been going.
For this pilot study, we are hoping to recruit 20 Spanish speakers and their partners. We initially sought to recruit only those diagnosed with MCI but, given the many barriers discussed last week (e.g., lack of healthcare access or English proficiency), it quickly became apparent that we could find very few Spanish speakers in Jacksonville who had been diagnosed. We then decided to also allow Spanish speakers aged 50 years or older with cognitive concerns to participate.
We then had to look beyond the Clinic to find our participants. A key to this has been working on outreach to the Hispanic community in Jacksonville, FL, to provide education in Spanish on MCI and information about our study. So far, we have:
As of today, we are excited to share with you that over 40 Hispanics have expressed interest in participating, and 4 participants and their partners have already completed the Spanish MSS training. We will continue delivering the MSS throughout the rest of 2019 and the first semester of 2020. We believe that this is an important step towards developing and promoting interventions that are linguistically and culturally appropriate for the Hispanic community.
Thank you to all our participants! If you have any ideas to help reach more people, let us know!
Liked by Dr. Melanie Chandler, HABIT FL Director, Dr. Dona Locke, HABIT AZ Director, Debbra Williams, Alumna Mentor