Recently, Jessica Garrido Pedrosa defended the doctoral thesis “Efficacy of cognitive intervention based on occupation in people with dementia in the moderate phase: systematic review and pilot study” directed by Dr. Núria Obradors Aranda and Dra. Isabel Sala Matavera. She obtained the maximum qualification: excel·lent “cum laude”.

The investigation has been developed in two phases, at first, a systematic review has been carried out following the guidelines of the PRISMA Guide. The results of the review have shown that multicomponent programs that use cognitive rehabilitation activities along with cognitive stimulation activities, from a top-down approach, have reported functional improvements in people with dementia in a moderate phase (Garrido-Pedrosa, Room, Obradors, 2017).

The second phase consisted in a pilot study, based on the results of the systematic review, with two experimental groups and a control group, applying in one of the cognitive therapy from the paradigm of employment and in the other cognitive therapy from the traditional paradigm. The results of the pilot study indicate significant functional improvements when applying a cognitive multi-component model based on employment (top-down approach), towards a cognitive program based on the traditional paradigm (bottom-up approach).