Study on the effect of aromatherapy on Alzheimer's disease

Recently, non-pharmacological therapies for the treatment of dementia have increasingly come into focus.In this study, Daiki Jimbo et al. investigated the curative effect of aromatherapy in 28 elderly people, 17 of whom suffered from Alzheimer's disease (AD).

After a control phase of 28 days, aromatherapy was carried out over the following 28 days, followed by a 28-day washout phase. The aromatherapy consisted of the treatment of rosemary and lemon oil in the morning and lavender and orange oil in the evening. To evaluate the effects of the therapy, the patients were examined four times: before the control phase, after the control phase, after the aromatherapy and after the washout phase. The assessment was carried out using the Japanese version of the Gottfries-Brane-Steen Scale (GBSS-J), the Functional Assessment Staging of Alzheimer's Disease (FAST), a revised version of the Hasegawa Dementia Scale (HDS-R) and the Touch Panel-Type Dementia Assessment Scale (TDAS).

All patients showeda significant improvement in personal orientation after aromatherapy in terms of cognitive function as measured by GBSS-J and TDAS scores. AD patients in particular showed a significant improvement in total TDAS scores. The results of routine laboratory tests showed no significant changes, indicating that no side effects occurred as a result of aromatherapy. The Zarit scale showed no significant changes, indicating that the improvements were not due to changes in caregiver support.

The results show that aromatherapy is an effective non-pharmacological therapy for dementia. In particular, it may have the potential to improve cognitive function in Alzheimer's patients.