Chile

Author(s):  
Andrea Slachevsky ◽  
Jean Gajardo

Currently, it is estimated there are about 180,000 people living with dementia in Chile, and this number is projected to triple by 2020. Dementia has increasingly become an important condition for society, health, and social policy. Dementia care falls mostly under the family responsibility, with limited involvement from the health sector which is usually in terms of diagnosis in secondary healthcare. Chile has no National Dementia Strategy. However, civil society and academic efforts over the last few years have helped to create a favourable setting that has paved the way for several milestones in dementia care in the country: a national awareness campaign, enhanced research, increased public funding for day care centres, and the development of a National Dementia Plan with a multisectoral approach to address the complex needs of people with dementia and their caregivers.

Author(s):  
Kua Ee Heok ◽  
Iris Rawtaer

The main caregivers of elderly people with dementia in Singapore are the family. In recent years, community services like day care centres, home care, respite care, and nursing homes have expanded. Non-governmental organizations are actively involved in providing a spectrum of services, ranging from medical, nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and counselling. General hospitals have set up geriatric and psycho-geriatric teams for dementia patients. There is now a focus on dementia prevention, and a successful prevention programme has been extended to three additional community centres. The challenge ahead is not only having sufficient dementia services, but also ensuring there are sufficient trained health professionals to provide the services. Current strengths in dementia care include strong emphasis on family care, increased availability of dementia community services like day care centres, and increased number of health professionals trained in dementia care. Future priorities include integrating hospital care into the community, keeping down the cost of dementia care, and creating dementia-friendly environments.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 622-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
VIKKI MCCALL ◽  
LOUISE MCCABE ◽  
ALASDAIR RUTHERFORD ◽  
FEIFEI BU ◽  
MICHAEL WILSON ◽  
...  

AbstractPolicy makers across the political spectrum have extolled the virtues of volunteering in achieving social policy aims. Yet little is known about the role that volunteering plays in addressing one of the significant challenges of an ageing population: the provision of care and support to people with dementia. We combine organisational survey data, secondary social survey data, and in-depth interviews with people with dementia, family carers and volunteers in order to better understand the context, role and challenges in which volunteers support people with dementia. Social policies connecting volunteering and dementia care in homes and communities often remain separate and disconnected and our paper draws on the concept of policy ‘assemblages’ to suggest that dementia care is a dynamic mixture of formal and informal volunteering activities that bridge and blur traditional policy boundaries. Linking home and community environments is a key motivation, benefit and outcome for volunteers, carers and those living with dementia. The paper calls to widen the definition and investigation of volunteering in social policy to include and support informal volunteering activity.


Author(s):  
Ninoslav Mimica ◽  
Marija Kus ̌an Jukic ́

For many years, dementia care in Croatia was provided traditionally by the family, without no organized support, and many people with dementia were undiagnosed. Treatment for people with dementia presenting with serious behavioural and psychiatric symptoms was provided on psycho-geriatric wards in psychiatric hospitals. Alzheimer Croatia, founded in 1999, provides information, support, and education to caregivers, as well as to health professionals including psychiatrists, and neurologists, and also raises public awareness of Alzheimer’s disease. The continuing voluntary work of Alzheimer Croatia has helped to encourage the development of other types of services for people with dementia in Croatia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 237796082095267
Author(s):  
Zena Aldridge ◽  
Emily Oliver ◽  
Hannah Gardener ◽  
Karen Harrison Dening

Introduction The rising prevalence of dementia has led to increased numbers of people with dementia being admitted to acute hospitals. This demand is set to continue due to an increasingly older population who are likely to have higher levels of dependency, dementia, and comorbidity. If admitted to the hospital, people with dementia are at higher risk of poor outcomes during and following a hospital admission. Yet, there remains a significant lack of specialist support within acute hospitals to support people with dementia, their families and hospital staff. Methods Admiral Nurses are specialists that work with families affected by dementia and provide consultancy and support to health and social care colleagues to improve the delivery of evidenced based dementia care. Historically, Admiral Nurses have predominantly been based in community settings. In response to the increasing fragmentation of services across the dementia trajectory, the Admiral Nurse model is evolving and adapting to meet the complex needs of families impacted upon by dementia inclusive of acute hospital care. Results The Admiral Nurse acute hospital model provides specialist interventions which improve staff confidence and competence and enables positive change by improving skills and knowledge in the provision of person-centred dementia care. The role has the capacity to address some of the barriers to delivering person centred dementia care in the acute hospital and contribute to improvements across the hospital both as a result of direct interventions or influencing the practice of others. Conclusion Improving services for people with dementia and their families requires a whole system approach to enable care coordination and service integration, this must include acute hospital care. The increasing numbers of people with dementia in hospitals, and the detrimental effects of admission, make providing equitable, consistent, safe, quality care and support to people with dementia and their families a national priority requiring immediate investment. The inclusion of Admiral Nursing within acute hospital services supports service and quality improvement which positively impacts upon the experience and outcomes for families affected by dementia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Karen Harrison Dening ◽  
Zena Aldridge

Background The UK older population is higher than the global average. Over the next 20 years, England will see an increase in the number of older people who have higher levels of dependency, dementia and comorbidity, many of whom will require 24-hour residential care. It is estimated that 70% of residents in nursing and residential care homes either have dementia on admission or develop it while residing in the care home, many of who will have complex needs with high levels of multimorbidity. However, there is a lack of consistency in the provision of primary care and specialist services to this population and a known gap in knowledge and skills of dementia care in care home staff and primary care teams. Methods This article considers the current health policy drivers to enhance integrated health and social care provision to care homes and proposes a model of care that would support the aims of the NHS Long Term Plan for care to be delivered closer to home and improve out of hospital care which includes people who live in care homes by introducing Enhanced Health in Care Homes. It is crucial that such a model includes the correct skill mix to meet the needs of the care home population. Conclusions There are currently gaps in service provision to many care homes. Admiral nurse case managers and specialists in dementia care, are well placed to support the delivery of Enhanced Health in Care Homes and improve access to specialist support to care home residents, their families, care home staff and the wider health and social care system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (10) ◽  
pp. e3.1-e3
Author(s):  
Esme Choonara

BackgroundParamedics are frequently called to people with dementia due to high rates of co-morbidities and complex needs, but decision making can be challenging due to lack of information or difficulties in assessment. Best-practice dementia care should be holistic and involve people with dementia in decisions as far as possible. A small number of qualitative studies have looked at paramedics’ decision-making in relation to dementia, but these studies have not specifically investigated the involvement of people with dementia in decisions. This study aimed to explore how paramedics make decisions when attending people with dementia, with a particular focus on understanding the factors that impact on whether, how, and to what degree paramedics involve people with dementia in decisions about their care.MethodsA generic qualitative research approach was used, informed by social constructivism and by the researcher’s commitment to the concept of ‘personhood’ in dementia care. Data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews with seven paramedics, each lasting between 40 and 80 minutes. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim and subsequently analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsFour themes were identified that all touched on challenges to delivering person-centred care for people with dementia. Themes identified were: 1. Paramedics’ differing approaches to assessing capacity and making best interest decisions. 2. Communication and developing a rapport. 3. Interconnections with others important to the person with dementia. 4. The impact of paramedics’ values and attitudes.ConclusionThe involvement of people with dementia is sometimes limited by medical, social or clinician-dependent factors. This study highlights how paramedics’ values and communication skills influence their interactions with people with dementia. As the paramedic role evolves, there is an opportunity to embed person-centred care in practice and to ensure that education equips paramedics with the skills and ethical frameworks needed to deliver high quality dementia care.


Author(s):  
Khuan Seow ◽  
Nadia Caidi

Canada has an aging population with the fastest growing age groups (80 and 45-64 years old) vulnerable to age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Caregiving responsibilities often fall to the family members of the afflicted without much attention and consideration being placed on the information needs of these caregivers. We call for a better understanding of these caregivers' information needs and uses by social policy makers as well as information providers.La population du Canada a tendance à vieillir considérablement, avec la hausse la plus rapide dans les groupes d’âge (80 et 45 à 64 ans). Les personnes âges sont très vulnérables à toute sorte de maladies, telles que la maladie d’Alzheimer. La responsabilité revient souvent aux membres de la famille qui doivent prendre soin des personnes atteintes de cette maladie. Or, nous ne connaissons que peu de chose sur les besoins en information des personnes qui prennent soin de ces malades de l’Alzheimer : qui sont-ils ? Quelles sont leurs sources... 


Author(s):  
P. C. Kemeny

Protestants criticized prostitution because it threatened the family and ultimately civil society, and the Watch and Ward Society devised a campaign to shut down Boston’s red-light districts. These Protestant elites espoused traditional gender roles and Victorian sexual mores and endorsed the “cult of domesticity.” In the late nineteenth century, a number of reform organizations turned their attention to the “social evil,” as it was popularly called. The Watch and Ward Society’s quest to reduce prostitution placed it squarely within the larger international anti-prostitution movement. Moral reformers resisted all forms of policy that officially sanctioned or tacitly tolerated prostitution, instead arguing for its abolition. Their attempt to suppress commercialized sex eventually collapsed because of the lack of public support.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 619-619
Author(s):  
Yeji Hwang ◽  
Nancy Hodgson

Abstract Anxiety and depression are one of the most distressing symptoms for the family caregivers. Little is known about the relationship between sleep impairments and anxiety/depression in this population and how objective and subjective sleep measures differ in relation to anxiety. This study was designed to examine the relationship between sleep impairments and anxiety/depression in people with dementia, using both subjective and objective sleep measures. Among the 170 study participants, 50% (n=85) reported to have anxiety/depression. In univariate logistic regression analyses on anxiety/depression, adjusting for dementia stage, people with more subjective sleep impairment had higher odds of having anxiety/depression (OR=1.111; 95% CI: 1.020-1.211, p=0.016) and people with poorer subjective sleep quality had higher odds of having anxiety/depression (OR=1.702; 95% CI: 1.046-2.769, p=0.032). Objective sleep measures from actigraphy did not show any significant relationships to anxiety/depression. The results suggest that subjective sleep measures are closely related to anxiety/depression in this population.


Author(s):  
Elena de Andrés-Jiménez ◽  
Rosa Mª Limiñana-Gras ◽  
Encarna Fernández-Ros

The aim of this study is to determine the existence of a characteristic personality profile of family carers of people with dementia. The correct knowledge and use of psychological variables which affect the carer, helps to promote appropriate actions to mitigate the impact of care and improve the carer’s quality of life and likewise the one of the person cared for. The study population consists of 69 family carers of people with dementia, members of various associations and care centers. The results allow us to identify a characteristic personality profile for these carers and it reveals a specific psychological working in this sample, although we cannot directly relate it with the tasks of caring for people with this disease, this profile gives us very relevant information to pay more attention to the needs of this group. Moreover, the analysis of personality styles depends on the sex of the family carer, showing, once again, that the woman is in a situation of most vulnerability.


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