Effects of Hand Exercise on Eating Action in Patients With Alzheimer’s Disease

We aim to investigate whether a popular hand exercise could be used to improve the action of eating in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A 6-month intervention was conducted in 60 patients with AD who live in a nursing home. They were divided into hand exercise and control groups. Patients of the control group maintained their daily routine. The improvement of Edinburgh Feeding Evaluation in Dementia scale in hand exercise group was significantly greater than in the control group (P = .003). Significant differences in time of autonomous eating and time of simulated eating between patients in the hand exercise and control groups (P < .05) were noted. The improvements in accuracy of eating action and coordination of eating action from baseline were significant in hand exercise group compared to the control group (P = .020 and .014, respectively). Hand exercise is a safe and effective intervention to improve the feeding and eating of people with AD.