Ms. Firmender, who has a history of mental health problems, was in therapy for depression. But she also has mild cognitive impairment and can have trouble remembering what day it is. So Dr. Kiosses was treating her with a novel approach called Problem Adaptation Therapy, or PATH. The therapy, developed at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and White Plains, N.Y., focuses on solving tangible problems that fuel feelings of sadness and hopelessness. It incorporates tools, like checklists, calendars, signs and videos, to make it accessible for people with memory issues. A caregiver is often involved.

The approach is one of several new psychotherapies to treat anxiety and depression in people with cognitive impairments, including early to moderate dementia. Another, the Peaceful Mind program, developed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and elsewhere for patients with anxiety and dementia, simplifies traditional cognitive behavioral therapy and focuses on scheduling pleasurable activities and skills, like deep breathing. Therapy sessions are short and take place in patients’ homes. A program designed by researchers at University College London gives cards to patients to take home to remind them of key strategies. One that says “Stop and Think” prompts them to pause when they have panicky and unhelpful thoughts to help keep those thoughts from spiraling and creating more anxiety.

Early research on the new approaches is encouraging, but longer and larger studies will be needed to fully assess the effectiveness. In a study published in JAMA Psychiatry involving 74 people with major depression and mild cognitive impairment or mild to moderate dementia, patients who had 12 sessions of PATH had a 43 percent greater reduction in their scores on a measure of depression symptoms compared with those in the control group who received 12 sessions of “supportive” therapy. (In the control treatment, therapists focused on conveying empathy and helping patients express their emotions.) At the end of treatment, 38 percent of patients who had PATH were in remission from their depression, compared with about 14 percent in the control group. In this study, both treatments were given at home.

A small pilot study of the Peaceful Mind program, published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, found that clinicians rated patients who had received three months of weekly sessions as less anxious, compared with a control group. Peaceful Mind participants also rated themselves as having a higher quality of life. But the differences were not evident at six months.

Brent P. Forester, chief of the division of geriatric psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts who was not involved in the research on the programs, said the approaches were promising and could fulfill a crucial need since current treatments for depression generally don’t work well in people with cognitive impairments.