scholarly journals Facilitating creativity in dementia care: the co-construction of arts-based engagement

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 1155-1174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane M. Robertson ◽  
Vikki McCall
Keyword(s):  
Care Home ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Dementia Care ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Relational Model ◽  
Embodied Learning ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Creative Self ◽  
Prior Experiences

AbstractThis paper seeks to understand the engagement of people with dementia in creative and arts-based activities by applying a relational model of citizenship and incorporating concepts of contextual and embodied learning from adult learning theory. A theoretically driven secondary analysis of observational and interview data focuses on the engagement of staff, volunteers and people with dementia during an arts-based intervention in a day centre and care home. The processes through which learning is co-constructed between the person with dementia, staff/volunteer facilitators and peers in the group to co-produce a creative engaged experience involves: increasing confidence for learning, facilitating social and physical connections, and affirming creative self-expression. The role of facilitator is central to the process of creative engagement to reinforce a sense of agency amongst participants and recognise people's prior experiences of learning and engagement in creative activities. People with dementia continue to learn and grow through engagement in creative activities to produce positive outcomes for the individual participants and for the care staff who observe and participate in this creativity. Facilitating creativity requires attention to lifelong experiences of learning in addition to the immediate interactional context to integrate arts-based interventions in dementia care successfully.

scholarly journals MEDREV: feasibility study of a combined pharmacy–health psychology intervention to improve care for people with dementia with behaviour that challenges in care homes

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (suppl 1) ◽  
pp. bjgp19X703253
Author(s):  
Ian Maidment
Keyword(s):  
Feasibility Study ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Care Home ◽  
Training Session ◽  
Dementia Care ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Care Homes ◽  
Inappropriate Use ◽  
People With Dementia

Background‘Behaviour that Challenges’ is common in older people with dementia in care homes and treated with antipsychotics. Policy is focused on reducing the use of antipsychotics in people with dementia and therefore reducing harm. This submission reports results on a NIHR-funded feasibility study MEDREV.AimTo assess the feasibility of medication review by a specialist dementia care pharmacist combined with staff training with the objective of limiting the inappropriate use of psychotropics.MethodCare homes were recruited. People meeting the inclusion (dementia; medication for behaviour that challenges), or their personal consultee, were approached. A specialist dementia care pharmacist reviewed medication and made recommendations. Care staff received a 3-hour training session promoting person-centred care and GPs’ brief training. Data were collected on recruitment and retention, and implementation of recommendations. Other outcomes included the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Nursing Home version, quality of life (EQ-5D/DEMQoL), cognition (sMMSE), and health economic (CSRI). Qualitative interviews explored expectations and experiences.ResultsMedication reviews were conducted in 29 of 34 residents recruited and the pharmacist recommended reviewing medication in 21 of these. Fifteen (71.4%) of these were antidepressants: 57.1% (12 of 21) of recommendations were implemented and implementation took a mean of 98.4 days. Non-implementation themes for will be presented. One hundred and sixty-four care staff received training (care homes = 142; primary care = 22). Twenty-one participants (care home managers = 5; GPs = 3; nurses = 2; care staff = 11) were interviewed.ConclusionThe study was feasible, although the approach would need modification to improve the uptake of reviews and reduce the delay in implementation. Most of the recommendations related to antidepressants.

scholarly journals A systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence and associations of stress and burnout among staff in long-term care facilities for people with dementia

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (08) ◽  
pp. 1203-1216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Costello ◽  
Sebastian Walsh ◽  
Claudia Cooper ◽  
Gill Livingston
Keyword(s):  
Long Term Care ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Care Home ◽  
Maslach Burnout Inventory ◽  
Personal Accomplishment ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
High Turnover ◽  
Term Care ◽  
People With Dementia

ABSTRACTBackground:Care home staff stress and burnout may be related to high turnover and associated with poorer quality care. We systematically reviewed and meta-analyzed studies reporting stress and burnout and associated factors in staff for people living with dementia in long-term care.Methods:We searched MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Web of Science databases, and CINAHL database from January 2009 to August 2017. Two raters independently rated study validity using standardized criteria. We meta-analyzed burnout scores across comparable studies using a random effects model.Results:17/2854 identified studies met inclusion criteria. Eight of the nine studies reporting mean Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) scores found low or moderate burnout levels. Meta-analysis of four studies using the 22-item MBI (n = 598) found moderate emotional exhaustion levels (mean 18.34, 95% Confidence Intervals 14.59–22.10), low depersonalization (6.29, 2.39–10.19), and moderate personal accomplishment (33.29, 20.13–46.46). All three studies examining mental health-related quality of life reported lower levels in carer age and sex matched populations. Staff factors associated with higher burnout and stress included: lower job satisfaction, lower perceived adequacy of staffing levels, poor care home environment, feeling unsupported, rating home leadership as poor and caring for residents exhibiting agitated behavior. There was preliminary evidence that speaking English as a first language and working shifts were associated with lower burnout levels.Conclusions:Most care staff for long-term care residents with dementia experience low or moderate burnout levels. Prospective studies of care staff burnout and stress are required to clarify its relationship to staff turnover and potentially modifiable risk factors.

Staff training using STAR: a pilot study in UK care homes

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 911-920 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Goyder ◽  
Martin Orrell ◽  
Jennifer Wenborn ◽  
Aimee Spector
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Behavioral Problems ◽  
Staff Training ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Care Home ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Care Homes ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Star Program

ABSTRACTBackground: Symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and behavioral problems are very common in people with dementia living in care homes. Staff training has been identifed as a promising psychosocial intervention. This pilot study investigated the feasibility of implementing the Staff Training in Assisted Living Residences (STAR) program in UK care homes.Methods: The eight-week STAR program was delivered in two care homes. Twenty-five care staff attended the training. Thirty-two residents, with dementia and clinically significant anxiety, depression, or behavioral problems, were included in the study. Residents and staff were assessed at baseline and eight-week follow-up.Results: Residents demonstrated significantly reduced symptoms of depression and behavioral problems following the implementation of the program, although resident-rated quality of life and anxiety symptoms did not improve significantly. Staff sense of hopefulness towards people with dementia also improved significantly and staff rated themselves as significantly more competent at forming relationships with residents.Conclusion: Delivering the STAR program to care staff can have an impact on the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia displayed by care home residents. The program was feasible to implement and was rated highly by care staff. A large-scale randomized controlled trial is now required to evaluate the effectiveness of this training intervention.

Alzheimer's Association Quality Care Campaign and professional training initiatives: improving hands-on care for people with dementia in the U.S.A.

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (S1) ◽  
pp. S25-S33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Gould ◽  
Peter Reed
Keyword(s):  
Professional Training ◽  
Quality Care ◽  
Dementia Care ◽  
Direct Care ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Distinct Component ◽  
Term Care ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Care Training

ABSTRACTIn the U.S.A., direct care workers and licensed practical nurses are the professionals who provide the most hands-on care to people with dementia in nursing homes and residential care facilities – yet they do not receive adequate training in dementia care. Dementia care training needs to be universal with all disciplines at all levels of care. Even though there is variability on recommended hours and content, most studies emphasize the importance of dementia care training as a distinct component of required training for any professional or paraprofessional working in long-term care. In 2005, the Alzheimer's Association launched its Quality Care Campaign to improve dementia care through state and federal advocacy; consumer education and empowerment; and staff training. This paper describes the effectiveness of Alzheimer's Association training as measured by knowledge gained and providers' intention to change their behavior immediately after attending the training.Overall, findings indicated that the participants responded positively to evidence-based training in dementia care that emphasized the importance of (i) leadership, (ii) team communication and collaboration, (iii) support and empowerment of direct care staff, (iv) awareness and practice of specific dementia care issues, (v) resident and family involvement in care, and (vi) professional self-care.

The Development of the strain in dementia care scale (SDCS)

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (12) ◽  
pp. 2017-2030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Karin Edberg ◽  
Katrina Anderson ◽  
Anneli Orrung Wallin ◽  
Mike Bird
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Residential Care ◽  
Outcome Measurement ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Dementia Care ◽  
Residential Facilities ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Item Scale

ABSTRACTBackground:Though many staff gain satisfaction from working with people with dementia in residential facilities, they also experience significant stress. This is a serious issue because this in turn can affect the quality of care. There is, however, a lack of instruments to measure staff strain in the dementia-specific residential care environment, and the aim of this study, accordingly, was to develop the “Strain in Dementia Care Scale.”Methods:The instrument was developed in three steps. In the first step, items were derived from six focus group discussions with 35 nurses in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Sweden concerning their experience of strain. In the second step, a preliminary 64-item scale was distributed to 927 dementia care staff in Australia and Sweden, which, based on exploratory factor analysis, resulted in a 29-item scale. In the final step, the 29-item scale was distributed to a new sample of 346 staff in Sweden, and the results were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis.Results:The final scale comprised the following 27 items producing a five-factor solution: Frustrated empathy; difficulties understanding and interpreting; balancing competing needs; balancing emotional involvement; and lack of recognition.Conclusions:The scale can be used (a) as an outcome measurement in residential care intervention studies; (b) to help residential facilities identify interventions needed to improve staff well-being, and, by extension, those they care for; and (c) to generally make more salient the critical issue of staff strain and the importance of ameliorating it.

scholarly journals Restraints and Restrictive Interventions during Essential Personal Care in Elderly People Living with Dementia in Care Homes

2021 ◽  
pp. 26-38
Author(s):  
Matthew Crooks ◽  
Katherine Wakenshaw ◽  
Julie Young ◽  
Kayleigh Purvis ◽  
Karin Smith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Care Home ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Care Homes ◽  
Personal Care ◽  
Personal Assistance ◽  
Care Home Staff ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Training Materials ◽  
Materials Used

Care home staff are frequently required to provide invasive personal care for their residents, and on occasions need to use restraint and restrictive practices with people with dementia. This often occurs in situations where the residents no longer have the insight that they require help and may misperceive the personal assistance as an assault. On a practical level, a significant number of people with dementia are currently being admitted to inpatient units due to their level of resistance around essential personal care. Often these same people are settled at all other times. This paper provides practical advice on how to support residents and their caregivers, and gives clinical, legal and ethical guidance. Previous work undertaken by the present authors have shown that care staff require supervision and coaching on this topic. The paper includes training materials used by the authors.  This includes a composite, fictitious case example that illustrates approaches that are compliant with UK guidelines.  It addresses the training of staff working in care homes. As such this paper provides a review and practical example of the appropriate use of restraint for residents unable to consent to the ‘intimate’ care they are receiving. It describes a method delivered in a person-centred manner and within a legal framework.  Having read this paper, care home staff should feel more confident, competent and secure in the assistance they are providing in this contentious area.

Visualising conversations between care home staff and residents with dementia

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROSEMARY BAKER ◽  
DANIEL ANGUS ◽  
ERIN R. SMITH-CONWAY ◽  
KATHARINE S. BAKER ◽  
CINDY GALLOIS ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Communication ◽  
Visual Inspection ◽  
Care Home ◽  
Aged Care ◽  
Care Staff ◽  
Sufficient Time ◽  
Case Examples ◽  
Care Home Staff ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Communication Behaviours

ABSTRACTPeople with dementia living in residential care often face the dual disadvantage of increasing difficulty with communication and reduced opportunities for conversation. Social interaction is central to wellbeing of residents with dementia, so it is important that care staff have the skills to engage in conversation with them. We studied conversations in 20 care staff–resident dyads, to examine conversation structure and content, patterns of engagement within conversations, including the topics around which engagement occurred, and communication behaviours by care staff that appeared to facilitate (or impede) participation by residents. The transcripts were analysed using Discursis, a computational information visualisation tool that allows interactive visual inspection, in context, of the contributions by each speaker, the turn-taking dynamics, and the content recurring within and between speakers. We present case examples (a) where care staff did most of the talking, initiated topics and were responsible for most recurrence of content; (b) where talk was more evenly shared between partners, with some topics initiated and/or elaborated by participants with dementia; and (c) where participants with dementia talked most, with care staff supporting the conversation. We identified accommodative strategies used by care staff, such as reflecting back the other person's responses to sustain engagement. We also noted care staff behaviours that impeded communication, such as not listening attentively and not allowing sufficient time for responses. The results from this study highlight aspects of social communication within the aged care context and suggest ways in which rewarding interactions between staff and residents with dementia might be encouraged.

scholarly journals Costs of formal and informal care at home for people with dementia: ‘Expert panel’ opinions from staff and informal carers

Dementia ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 210-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clarissa M Giebel ◽  
Susan Davies ◽  
Paul Clarkson ◽  
Caroline Sutcliffe ◽  
David Challis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Care Home ◽  
Nursing Home Admission ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Home Support ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Individual Needs ◽  
Informal Carers ◽  
The Individual

Effective home support in dementia is key in delaying nursing home admission. However, home support is frequently not tailored to the individual needs of people with dementia. Staff allocating home support services may not identify important care needs, which only be recognised by informal carers. The purpose of this study was to explore the balance of informal and formal home support and their associated costs from the perspectives of both informal carers and paid staff. Five case vignettes of people with dementia were designed based on an existing English data set from a European study into transition into long-term care (the RightTimePlaceCare programme), representing 42 per cent of the English sample. In total, 14 informal carers and 14 paid staff were consulted in separate groups, as expert panels, regarding their recommendations for home care services for each vignette. Care recommendations of carers and staff were costed based on nationally available unit costs and compared. Informal carers allocated fewer hours of care than staff. Personal and domestic home care and day care centres were the most frequently recommended formal services by both groups, and some vignettes of people with dementia were recommended for care home admission. The ratio of costs of informal versus formal support was relatively equal for paid staff, yet unbalanced from the perspectives of informal carers with a greater proportion of formal care costs. Recommendations from this study can help shape dementia care to be more tailored to the individual needs of people with dementia and their carers.

Intensive Interaction and discourses of personhood: A focus group study with dementia caregivers

Dementia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 2018-2037
Author(s):  
Cheyann J Heap ◽  
Emma Wolverson
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Residential Care ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Care Home ◽  
Dementia Care ◽  
Focus Group Study ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Medical Discourses ◽  
Paid Caregivers

Introduction Societal discourses of dementia are medicalised and dehumanising. This leads to a social problem: the loss of personhood in dementia care. The communication technique Intensive Interaction, however, honours personhood. The current study aimed to explore how paid caregivers of people with dementia enact societal discourses of dementia, with and without the context of Intensive Interaction. This was to explore ways to address the loss of personhood in dementia care. Method Paid caregivers from two residential care homes attended an Intensive Interaction training day. Caregivers participated in focus groups before and after training. Transcripts of the focus groups were analysed with Critical Discourse Analysis, an approach which relates discourse to social power. Results Before Intensive Interaction training, carers accessed medical discourses of loss, non-communication and lack of personhood. ‘Being with’ people with dementia was framed as separate to paid work. After training, caregivers accessed discourses of communication and personhood. Intensive Interaction reframed ‘being with’ people with dementia as part of ‘doing work’. Family caregivers were largely absent from discourses. Care home hierarchies and the industrialisation of care were barriers towards honouring personhood. Conclusions Medical discourses of dementia reinforce a status quo whereby interpersonal interactions are devalued in dementia care, and professional ‘knowledge’ (thereby professional power) is privileged over relationships. Intensive Interaction may enable paid caregivers to access person-centred discourses and related practices. However, this requires support from management, organisational structures, and wider society. More research is needed to identify ways to involve families in residential care and to explore the effects of using Intensive Interaction in practice.

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