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Standards of care and care pathways for younger people with dementia vary greatly, making clinical development and service planning challenging. Staff working in dementia services identify that they use biographical knowledge of families to influence clinical decision making. This information is not collected or implemented in a formal manner; highlighting an important knowledge-practice gap. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The development of a family-centred assessment for use in dementia care has three core components: first, thematic development from qualitative interviews with younger people with dementia and their families; second, clinical input on a preliminary design of the tool; and third, feedback from an external panel of clinical and methodological experts and families living with young-onset dementia.

The 12-item Family Assessment in Dementia (Family-AiD) tool was developed and presented for clinical use. These 12 questions are answered with a simple Likert-type scale to determine areas of unmet need and identify where families may need additional clinical support. Also included is a series of open-ended questions and a biographical timeline designed to assist staff with the collection and use of biographical and family functioning information.

A dementia-specific clinical family assessment tool, which also collects background biographical data on family units may be a useful way to document information; inform clinical decision making; and address otherwise unmet needs. Family-AiD has potential to improve clinical care provision of people with dementia and their families. Evaluation of the feasibility and acceptability of its implementation in practice are now required.

This paper aims to showcase an innovative programme of physical activity and sport to enhance the health and well-being of people with Young Onset Dementia (YOD). It is hoped that this will inspire similar collaborations between day and activity centres and exercise/sports facilities.

A case study of a collaborative programme between Peaceful Place, a day service for people with YOD and Sport for Confidence in Essex. It draws upon the observations and reflective accounts of those implementing the programme.

People with YOD chose and engaged in a range of physical activities and sports, resulting in increased fitness, flexibility and mobility. There were improvements in memory, cognition for some and reductions in anxiety and depression for most. The main benefits were fun, enjoyment, confidence, a sense of achievement, self-esteem, improved social interaction and wider relationships. Participants were also motivated to take more exercise, get outdoors and try new challenges and experiences.

Given the predicted rise in people with YOD, this paper offers insight into ways of supporting them to be active physically and socially, thus, improving health, well-being and quality of life.

This paper is the account of professionals deeply involved in all stages of negotiating, consulting, developing, overcoming challenges and implementing the programme.

This article describes the evaluation of the ACE club, a service for younger people with dementia in North Wales. The evaluation was conducted by the ACE club members and conducted through a relationship‐centred approach expressed through the Senses Framework (achievement, belonging, continuity, purpose, security, significance) (Nolan et al, 2006). Members of the ACE club found the sense of significance to be the most important and meaningful ‘sense’ in helping to structure their evaluation and use of the ACE club. The clinical interventions outline is shared within the text to help provide a grounded and inductively generated practice structure. The funding of ‘normalising’ activities for younger people with dementia is an area of dementia care that needs urgent attention.

Research ethics and integrity stipulates that research must be conducted with responsibility towards the research community and should benefit the intended population. This chapter will share insights from an ongoing research programme to reduce family conflict in the context of dementia care while discussing the accompanying ethical considerations. Research into dementia care has primarily focused on improving outcomes for the care dyad, leaving the influence and input of the wider family unit under investigated. Family conflict can detrimentally impact the quality of care provided and leave caregivers vulnerable to psychosocial difficulties. Family conflict occurs in the context of dementia care but there is little research on how to reduce, or prevent, such conflict occurring. In this research programme, a systematic review investigated the effectiveness of interventions that include the wider family unit to reduce family conflict; only one study was included which evidenced the lack of interventions in this area. A qualitative scoping review was then conducted to explore the lived experiences of caregiving families with experience of family conflict and reported solutions. It was found that conflict occurred due to factors including care decisions and role transitions which impacted relationships and affected care provision. Solutions to conflict were less often reported, indicating an important gap in the literature. Interviews with Alzheimer's Society staff and volunteers revealed that stigma and denial surrounding dementia were prevalent, and families were often reluctant to seek external help. This research programme is currently establishing public patient involvement (PPI) to develop the research methodology and interview questions for people with dementia (PWD) and their family caregivers to explore their lived experiences and potential solutions to family conflict. To conclude, this research programme will propose a family-focused intervention aimed at systemic family conflict for those caring for someone with dementia.

This article is written by someone living with Alzheimer's disease, Ann Johnson. It considers how education about dementia can be delivered in various settings and to various audiences. It highlights the different approaches required and the feedback received.

Whilst Parkinson's disease (PD) remains incurable recent evidence has suggested that diet may have a role in delaying the onset of symptoms and/or reducing the risk of developing the disease. This paper is the first in a series on diet and PD and outlines the effect that vitamin E may have on the prevalence of the disease. Results have indicated that a doubled intake of vitamin E has been associated with a reduction in disease incidence of up to 70 per cent, possibly due to reducing the effects of oxidative stress. Raised intake of peanuts and salad dressing has also associated with a reduced risk of PD. Although no guaranteed protection can be conferred by vitamin E intake it can be recommended that individuals at risk of PD could increase their intake as it may be of benefit and is unlikely to be harmful.

Recent changes affecting state pension age, and earlier diagnosis, will result in more people with dementia in employment. The purpose of this paper is to establish the nature of support that would enable/enables people with dementia or mild cognitive impairment to continue employment post diagnosis.

An integrative review was carried out supported by information derived from a thematic analysis of data from interviews with seven relatives supporting a younger person with dementia and one person with dementia.

Six papers were identified for inclusion in the review. Findings from the published papers and interviews indicated that work is a significant issue for people with dementia highlighting problems with job retention, work performance and the impact of diagnosis.

The review highlighted a dearth of high-quality research in the area. Although employment was not the main focus of the interviews, the extracts highlight some of the challenges that face people who develop dementia while of working age, their families, and employers.

Vocational rehabilitation is primarily carried out by allied health professionals; however, there is a lack of research evidence relating to people with dementia in the workplace. Further research is needed in order to inform future practice.

Loss of employment deprives families of financial security and employers of a skilled employee.

This is the first review to focus on dementia in employment, providing a starting point on which to base future research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a study which explored the knowledge and attitudes of university students towards people living with dementia, and developed and tested a dementia awareness workshop, dementia detectives: university edition, designed to improve knowledge and foster positive attitudes to dementia in students.

Dementia detectives: university edition was launched during dementia awareness week and five workshops were delivered to university students. In total, 42 participants attended and completed a knowledge and attitude measure before and after the workshop, as well as rating the workshop with regards to satisfaction, relevance, understanding and whether they would recommend the workshop to friends.

Students perceived living with dementia to be a negative and stigmatised experience. The workshop scored highly in terms of satisfaction, relevance and understanding and all students stated that they would recommend the workshop to others. Paired t-tests found significant improvements in self-assessed dementia knowledge.

This was a pilot evaluation and further testing with larger samples is required.

The workshop meets the requirements for tier 1 dementia education and training as outlined in the Dementia Core Skills and Knowledge Framework published by the Department of Health.

The workshop has the potential to increase knowledge, change attitudes, improve empathy and contribute to the development of a dementia aware workforce through undergraduate education.

Dementia detectives: university edition is a novel interactive method of dementia education and training.