The Role of Rehabilitation for Early-Stage Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias: Practice and Priorities

The World Health Organization describes rehabilitation as interventions that focus on addressing disability through optimizing functional ability for individuals living with various health challenges in their unique daily life contexts. Rehabilitation services are typically seeking to enhance functional capacity and health, either in concert with, or in place of pharmacologic interventions. These services typically fall into 2 categories, restorative, where the client endeavors to return to a prior level of independent function, and compensatory, where s/he may not. In the latter case, clients might receive, and be trained to use, technology aids or other external supports to enable them to engage in a safe, healthy, and meaningful day-to-day life. For some populations, however, even enhanced functional capacity can present in the form of an insidious, albeit slower decline. So, what is, or should, rehabilitation's role be in progressive neurologic conditions? Specifically, what are the policy and practice implications of rehabilitation for (not in the presence of, but for) the care of persons living with neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and Alzheimer's disease related dementias (AD/ADRD)?