Education with impact – Quality improvement in mild cognitive impairment (MCI): Stories from across the UK and Ireland

Growing evidence suggests that supporting lifestyle changes for people with a mild cognitive impairment (MCI) could improve the health of their brains and may reduce their risk of developing dementia. Indeed, recent evidence suggests that up to 40% of dementia cases may be potentially preventable through modification of life-course risk factors (Livingston 2020).

Unfortunately, this important window of opportunity to reduce dementia risk and improve wellbeing is often missed in existing UK clinical pathways, where people with an MCI diagnosis are commonly discharged without follow-up and asked to ‘watch and wait’ for their condition to deteriorate (Leroi et al, 2020).

To help address this, in 2021, Dementia Academy offered its first course in mild cognitive impairment. Initially intended as a small, virtual course for the Greater Manchester area, commissioned by Dementia United and provided by Dr Ross Dunne, the course became a national affair, with 73 attendees and over 20 quality improvement projects across the country.

Practical ideas for quality improvement

As a result of those projects, we are delighted to publish our first 'Education with Impact' booklet, 'Quality improvement in mild cognitive impairment (MCI): Stories from across the UK and Ireland'.

The booklet contains a range of different projects carried out by delegates on the first MCI course, presenting them briefly in four categories, with a short background to introduce each:

• Brain health promotion

• Risk mitigation

• Monitoring and early intervention

• Awareness raising

Our hope is that, by sharing these examples of quality improvement, they can provide inspiration to others, or a template for use in local services, leading to lasting improvement in services and support around brain health and cognition across the country.

Our sincere thanks go to each delegate for their role of addressing MCI. We are very grateful that they have agreed to showcase their work more widely to improve understanding of, and optimise services for, people experiencing MCI respectively.