Introduction: For their work with people with dementia occupational therapists use non-pharmacological methods of treatment or alleviation of dementia symptoms, one of which can be aromatherapy. Aromatherapy alleviates the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, thus contributing to greater effectiveness of occupational therapy treatments and higher quality of life for people with dementia. Purpose: To investigate the effect of aromatherapy on people with dementia, with an emphasis on sleep occupation. Methods: A qualitative approach with literature review was used. The literature was searched in the databases Sciencedirect, Cohrane library, Medline – Pubmed and Whiley Online Library. The keywords sensory stimulationa, olfactory stimulation, dementia, sleep, sleep quality and essential oils were used in the search - in Slovene and English. The inclusion criteria were articles in Slovenian or English that are fully accessible and less than ten years old, and that contain words used in the literature search in the title or keywords. The literature review was performed according to the PRISMA model. Results: The final analysis included ten articles. One research was qualitative, it was action research. Other researches were quantitative, namely four randomised controlled trials, two non-randomised controlled trials, two pilot studies and one experimental study. In the thematic qualitative analysis, we extracted the following topics from the articles: the effect of aromatherapy on sleep, the effect of aromatherapy on the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, the effect of aromatherapy on short- and long-term memory, the effect of aromatherapy on the performance of daily activities, the safety of aromatherapy, the effect of aromatherapy on the burden of caregivers of people with dementia. Different forms of aromatherapy have been used in research. Aromatherapy has been found to be effective in improving functioning and reducing sleep problems in people with dementia. Discussion and conclusion: Aromatherapy has been proven to be safe therapy that can improve sleep and memory and reduce behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, but is not effective in improving the performance of daily activities. Different forms of aromatherapy can be used, but those that combine aromatherapy with touch have been proven to be more effective. In occupational therapy it can be used as an intervention that supports the implementation of occuppation, passive activity and to strengthen the therapeutic relationship.
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