scholarly journals Using Adaptive Interaction to Simplify Caregiver’s Communication with People with Dementia Who Cannot Speak

2022 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlene J. Astell ◽  
Sarah Shoaran ◽  
Maggie P. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Simplified Approach ◽  
The People ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Nonverbal Skills ◽  
Adaptive Interaction ◽  
Social Behaviours

Caregivers find it difficult to interact with people with dementia who have lost the capacity for speech. Adaptive Interaction is a simplified approach that uses the nonverbal fundamentals of communication to connect with people who can no longer speak. Here we present Adaptive Interaction as a method for equipping caregivers with these nonverbal skills to increase communication with the people they care for. Six caregivers were each paired with one individual with dementia and trained in Adaptive Interaction. After receiving training in Adaptive Interaction, caregivers identified more communicative behaviours in their interactions partners and engaged in more frequent positive social behaviours and meaningful actions during interactions. These findings suggest that it is possible to equip staff to use simplified communication based on nonverbal fundamentals to connect with people with dementia who can no longer speak.

Care at home for people with dementia: as in a total institution?

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
JANET ASKHAM ◽  
KATE BRIGGS ◽  
IAN NORMAN ◽  
SALLY REDFERN
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Social Relationship ◽  
Intimate Relationship ◽  
Total Institution ◽  
Home Life ◽  
The People ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Custodial Care ◽  
Care At Home ◽  
At Home

This article examines three kinds of social relationship likely to be present when people with dementia are cared for at home by relatives or friends: custodial care, an intimate relationship, and home-life. Using Goffman's three defining aspects of custodial care – routinisation, surveillance and mortification of the self – the paper examines whether these characterised the care of people with dementia at home and, if so, whether they conflicted with the intimate relationship and with home-life. The study involved sustained observations and interviews with 20 people with dementia and their carers in and around London, and qualitative analysis of the data. It was found that all three aspects of custodial care were present although not fully realised, and that they led to difficulties, many of which were associated with the concurrent pursuit of an intimate relationship and home-life. In all cases, daily life was routinised partly to help accomplish care tasks but was found monotonous, while surveillance was usual but restrictive, and prevented both the carers and those with dementia from doing things that they wished to do. Those with dementia were distressed by the denial of their former identities, such as car-driver or home-maker, and by being treated like children. Both the carers and the people with dementia had various ways of balancing custodial care, their intimate relationships and home-life, such as combining routines with other activities, evading surveillance or carrying it out by indirect means, and there were many attempts to maintain some semblance of former identities.

‘This is my story, how I remember it’: In-depth analysis of Dignity Therapy documents from a study of Dignity Therapy for people with early stage dementia

Dementia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 543-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Johnston ◽  
Sally Lawton ◽  
Jan Pringle
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Framework Analysis ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Dignity Therapy ◽  
The People ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Care And Support ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Self Forgiveness ◽  
Person With Dementia

Dementia is a progressive condition that impacts on individuals, families and care professionals. Maintaining quality of life through engagement with the person with dementia is an important part of their care. Dignity Therapy is an interactive, psychotherapeutic intervention that uses a trained dignity therapist to guide the person with dementia through an interview that then creates a written legacy called a generativity document. This can provide knowledge to inform care, as the condition progresses. Generativity documents were analysed using framework analysis. Main themes from the analysis were origin of values, essence and affirmation of self, forgiveness and resolution and existentialism/ meaning of life. These themes provide evidence of the type, scope and contribution that information generated from Dignity Therapy can make to the care and support of people with dementia. They provide information about the values, self-identity and the people and events that have been important to them and influenced their lives.

scholarly journals Technology-Assisted Home Care for People With Dementia and Their Relatives: Scoping Review (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Palmdorf ◽  
Anna Lea Stark ◽  
Stephan Nadolny ◽  
Gerrit Eliaß ◽  
Christoph Karlheim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Care Setting ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Case Series ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
The People ◽  
People With Dementia

BACKGROUND Assistive technologies for people with dementia and their relatives have the potential to ensure, improve, and facilitate home care and thereby enhance the health of the people caring or being cared for. The number and diversity of technologies and research have continuously increased over the past few decades. As a result, the research field has become complex. OBJECTIVE The goal of this scoping review was to provide an overview of the research on technology-assisted home care for people with dementia and their relatives in order to guide further research and technology development. METHODS A scoping review was conducted following a published framework and by searching 4 databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycInfo, and CENTRAL) for studies published between 2013 and 2018. We included qualitative and quantitative studies in English or German focusing on technologies that support people with dementia or their informal carers in the home care setting. Studies that targeted exclusively people with mild cognitive impairment, delirium, or health professionals were excluded as well as studies that solely consisted of assessments without implication for the people with dementia or their relatives and prototype developments. We mapped the research field regarding study design, study aim, setting, sample size, technology type, and technology aim, and we report relative and absolute frequencies. RESULTS From an initial 5328 records, we included 175 studies. We identified a variety of technology types including computers, telephones, smartphones, televisions, gaming consoles, monitoring devices, ambient assisted living, and robots. Assistive technologies were most commonly used by people with dementia (77/175, 44.0%), followed by relatives (68/175, 38.9%), and both target groups (30/175, 17.1%). Their most frequent goals were to enable or improve care, provide therapy, or positively influence symptoms of people with dementia (eg, disorientation). The greatest proportions of studies were case studies and case series (72/175, 41.1%) and randomized controlled trials (44/175, 25.1%). The majority of studies reported small sample sizes of between 1 and 50 participants (122/175, 69.7%). Furthermore, most of the studies analyzed the effectiveness (85/233, 36.5%) of the technology, while others targeted feasibility or usability or were explorative. CONCLUSIONS This review demonstrated the variety of technologies that support people with dementia and their relatives in the home care setting. Whereas this diversity provides the opportunity for needs-oriented technical solutions that fit individual care arrangements, it complicates the choice of the right technology. Therefore, research on the users’ informational needs is required. Moreover, there is a need for larger studies on the technologies’ effectiveness that could contribute to a higher acceptance and thus to a transition of technologies from research into the daily lives of people with dementia and their relatives.

scholarly journals The Effect of Dance and Movement Therapy on Balance and Depression of the Elderly Who Are Sick with Dementia

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dovilė Štrimaitytė ◽  
Gražina Krutulytė ◽  
Kristina Žigienė
Keyword(s):  
Muscle Power ◽  
Dynamic Balance ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Movement Therapy ◽  
Old People ◽  
Symptoms Of Depression ◽  
The People ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Keywords Dementia ◽  
Increased Risk

The subject of the research: The effect of dance and movement therapy.The problem of the research: Years are going on and old people meet a problem that their gait changes, their balance becomes worse and the muscle power decreases. People who have cognitive impairment frequently demonstrate disturbed gait which put them into an increased risk to fall down and get injured seriously. Patients who are sick with dementia very often experience symptoms of depression the treatment of which is investigated insufficiently. It is known that dance and movement therapy positively impacts the health of the people with dementia, improves their emotions and mental conditions. Many foreign scientists investigate how dance and movement therapy affects old people’s balance, depression, but the following indexes of people who are sick with dementia are not researched. In Lithuania no pharmacological treatment of dementia is popular. Nowadays in our country there is no research about the effect of dance and movement therapy’s effect on people who are sick with dementia, how it impacts their depression and static and dynamic balance. The hypothesis of the research: Dance and movement therapy can improve static and dynamic balance and reduce depression of the elderly who are sick with dementia The aim of the research was to evaluate the effect of dance and movement therapy on balance and depression of the elderly who are sick with dementia: The goals of the research were: To establish the effect of dance and movement therapy to static and dynamic balance for old people sick with dementia. To establish the effect of dance and movement therapy for depression of old people sick with dementia. Several conclusions were made in on the basis of the results of this study: Dance and movement therapy can help improve static and dynamic balance for the elderly with dementia (p < 0. 05). Dance and movement therapy can help reduce depression of the elderly with dementia (p < 0.05).Keywords: dementia, balance, depression, dance and movement therapy.

scholarly journals Stress in the Volunteer Caregiver: Human-Centric Technology Can Support Both Caregivers and People with Dementia

Medicina ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
pp. 257
Author(s):  
Barbara Huelat ◽  
Sharon T. Pochron
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Medication Management ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Resource Network ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
The People ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Home Based ◽  
Stress Burden

Background and Objectives: Currently, one in eight people over the age of 65 have dementia, and approximately 75% of caregiving is provided by volunteer family members with little or no training. This study aimed to quantify points of stress for home-based caregivers with the aim of reducing stress for them while concurrently supporting quality of life for the people with dementia whom they cared for. The overreaching purpose was to increase our knowledge of the caregiver stress burden and explore potential technologies and behaviors to ease it. Materials and Methods: We interviewed home-based and professional caregivers regarding causes of emotional and physical stress and methods they used to alleviate it. Results: This study found that: (1) dementia symptoms created a burden of stress for home-based caregivers primarily in the areas of medication management, memory loss, hygiene care and disruptive behaviors; (2) home-based caregivers identified “finding available resources” as the most important source of stress relief; (3) a minority of home-based caregivers possessed a resource network and knew how to find resources but all professional caregivers were able to find resources and support; (4) home-based caregivers combated dementia symptoms with positive distractions and human touch with little use of technology, since it was mostly unknown; and (5) facility-based caregivers were knowledgeable and readily used dementia-based technology. Conclusion: Since professional caregivers have access to technological resources that our home-based caregivers lack, one might logically conclude that we should transfer technology used by professionals to those with dementia. However, great caution needs to be in place before we take that step. Successful technology should address the human experience as home-based caregivers try to use new technologies. Human-centric technology addresses the needs of both people with dementia and the home-based caregiver.

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