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Due to the increasing incidence of dementia in Ireland, there is a need to prepare occupational therapy students for future careers in dementia-focused health care. The purpose of this study are to measure the knowledge and attitudes of Irish undergraduate occupational therapy students towards older people with dementia and examine related variables including year of study, personal and placement dementia experiences and future career choice.

Data was gathered using a cross-sectional online survey, incorporating the Alzheimer’s Disease Knowledge Scale and the Dementia Attitudes Scale, which was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.

Seventy-five responses were gathered and analysed, indicating more advanced occupational therapy students demonstrate higher levels of dementia knowledge, but dementia attitudes remain similar across different year groups. Students with clinical dementia experiences displayed comparable levels of dementia knowledge and attitudes to those without. However, students with familial dementia experiences displayed significantly more positive attitudes. The likelihood of selecting a future career with older adults with dementia significantly related to students’ positive dementia attitudes but not dementia knowledge.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first Irish study that focuses on undergraduate occupational therapy students’ dementia knowledge and attitudes. The results could be used to inform and develop Irish undergraduate occupational therapy programmes.

Older people with dementia (OPD) have specific housing and technology-related needs, for which various design principles exist. A model for designing environments and its constituting items for people with dementia that has a firm foundation in neurology may help guide designers in making design choices. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A general design model is presented consisting of three principles for OPD, namely designing for ageing people; designing for a favourable state and designing for beautiful moments. The neurosciences as a whole give shape to an eminent framework explaining the behaviour of OPD. One of the objectives of this paper is to translate the design principles into design specifications and to show that these specifications can be translated in a design.

Philosophical concepts are introduced which are required to understand design for OPD. Four case studies from Dutch nursing homes are presented that show how the theory of modal aspects of the philosopher Dooyeweerd can be used to map design specifications in a systematic way.

These examples of design solutions illustrate the applicability of the model developed in this article. It emphasises the importance of the environment for supporting the daily life of OPD.

There is a need for a design model for OPD. The environment and technology should initiate positive behaviours and meaningful experiences. In this paper, a general model for the designing of environments for OPD was developed that has a firm foundation in neurology and behavioural sciences. This model consists of six distinct steps and each step can be investigated empirically. In other words, this model may lay the foundation for an evidence-based design.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between one aspect of primary care in England – the annual review by general practitioners for dementia patients – and length of hospital stay (LoS). The annual review should identify the needs of both patients and carers and co-ordinate services across health and social care to address those needs. If this is done well, timely discharge from hospital may be facilitated.

The study uses linked national data from 2006/2007 to 2010/2011 on over 36,000 patients, employing sophisticated statistical techniques to isolate the effect of the annual dementia review on LoS.

Hospital patients discharged to the community have significantly shorter stays if they are cared for by practices that reviewed a higher percentage of their patients with dementia. However, this effect is small and is not evident for patients discharged to care homes or who died in hospital. Longer LoS is associated with a range of co-morbidities, markers of low availability of social care and with intensive provision of informal care.

Although the dementia review has only a modest effect on LoS, the components of the review could improve the health and well-being of those with dementia and their carers.

The study is the first to employ a robust methodology to investigate the impact of the annual dementia review on hospital LoS, an important aspect of the interface between primary and secondary care. There are implications for clinical and financial aspects of health and social care policy.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from face-to-face interviews undertaken with 16 care and nursing home managers employed in homes situated in two English local authorities. The research sought to explore managers’ perceptions of the role of contract monitoring in the prevention of abuse.

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 16 care and nursing home managers.

Though personnel employed by the local authority who conducted contract monitoring were generally thought of positively by care home managers on a personal level, their effectiveness was perceived to be limited as a result of their lack of experience and knowledge of providing care, and the methods that they were required to use.

Though the research draws upon the experiences of only 16 care and nursing home managers in two local authorities, data suggest that current contract monitoring activity is of limited utility in determining the true nature of care and the presence of abuse.

Unusually, the paper explores care and nursing home managers’ perceptions of contract monitoring processes in terms of how they perceive their effectiveness in preventing abuse.

The purpose of this paper is to scope out European and global policy documents focused on dementia with the purpose of providing a synthesis of the challenges the phenomenon poses and the gaps evident.

An adapted PESTEL framework as a data extraction tool resulted in an analysis of the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, organisational, educational and research aspects of dementia policy.

Policy documents showed variability of dementia strategy, plan and programme development. All documents recognised rapidly growing ageing populations, and increasing numbers of people living with dementia. Dementia as a public health priority is inconsistent in growth. Global policy documents stress the impact of dementia will be felt most by low- and middle-income countries. Main themes were: a need to raise awareness of dementia and action to reduce stigma around it, the need for early diagnosis and preventative person-centred approaches with integrated care, fiscal investment, further research, training and education for workforces, increased involvement of and support for people living with dementia and care and support close to home.

By identifying current dementia challenges and policy gap implications this analysis urges engagement with broader frames of reference as potential for enabling bolder and radically better dementia care models.

This paper offers a review of present global and European dementia policy, outlining the potential implications for the most marginalised in society if it fails to be critical of its own underpinning assumptions.