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The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explore the existing evidence around dementia services and interrogate the overarching UK policy development relating to service inclusion of black and minoritised groups. The paper will go on to identify the implications for the dementia wellness pathway and make recommendations regarding how services can be more inclusive.

This paper examines the policy/practice landscape around dementia care provision and observes if lessons can be learnt to improve health outcomes for people living with dementia from black and minoritised communities.

A review of dementia policy demonstrates how opportunities to improve the awareness, diagnosis and post-diagnostic support for minoritised communities are being missed. The outcomes of this mean that individuals are denied vital treatment and support, which could enhance quality of life and delay the progression of dementia.

The authors’ premise is that not meeting the dementia support needs of less-heard communities has negative financial as well as social and health-related outcomes and has wider resonance and implications for all stages of the dementia wellness pathway. Moreover, there is a legal responsibility for public services to provide culturally sensitive, responsive, appropriate and available care, to all people, without discrimination.

This paper offers a valuable review of policy and practice around dementia care in the UK and makes recommendations to improve health outcomes for people living with dementia from black and minoritised communities.

This study aims to describe the current conceptualisation of self-management of dementia by family carers in the literature and from the views of dementia professionals and family carers, and to establish a more comprehensive concept of self-management of dementia by family carers.

A hybrid concept analysis included three phases: the theoretical phase reviewed the literature on self-management of dementia by family carers; the fieldwork phase interviewed professionals and family carers; and the analytical phase synthesised and discussed the findings from the previous two phases.

The findings revealed that self-management of dementia by family carers encompasses four domains: supporting care recipients, self-care, sustaining a positive relationship with care recipients, and personal characteristics and skills.

The findings highlighted the essential elements of the construct of self-management of dementia by family carers. The findings can be used as a conceptual framework of self-management and are useful in designing and evaluating self-management support interventions for family carers.

There is increasing interest in the UK in developing environments that support people who are neurodiverse. This paper aims to report on a project to develop a cognitively supportive environmental assessment tool to improve the design of health centres, where the majority of National Health Service consultations take place, for all users, including people living with dementia and those who are neurodiverse.

A three-stage process was used: a literature review; the development of a matrix of key design features for people living with dementia, autism and other neurodiverse conditions; and the development of an environmental assessment tool and guide for users, which included easy-to-read versions to maximise service user involvement.

The overarching concepts of dementia-friendly design can be adapted to create designs for everyone, including those who are neurodiverse.

There is a paucity of research in environmental design for primary care from the patient’s perspective, and, more generally, further research on design for adults with learning disabilities and autism is needed.

The tools are free to download. With adaptation, they have potential applicability across health and care settings.

This project has confirmed that the principles of dementia-friendly design are applicable, with modifications, to a wider group of neurodiverse people. Critically, each person’s response to sensory stimuli is individual rather than determined by their condition.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between trait and situational empathy, and the effect of educational activities on empathy of nursing students towards people living with dementia.

This embedded mixed-methods study compared trait and situational empathy examined situational empathy pre/post didactic and experiential activities with nursing students and used qualitative data from focus group discussions to corroborate the quantitative data.

There was no significant difference between trait and situational empathy. Post intervention scores (situational) demonstrated improvements on empathic concern, shared affect, empathic imagination, helping motivation and cognitive empathy. Focus group discussions supported quantitative findings and also included distress.

Limitations include lack of generalizability, single group threats and exclusion of stakeholder input. Single group threats include absence of a control group, familiarity with the CSES from pre-test to post-test and reactive measurements, as the students were observed by faculty while completing the Dementia Live activity. The perspective of stakeholders would strengthen the impact of the results on implementation.

Information gleaned from this study can help inform administrators in education and in practice. CliftonStrengths assessment and Dementia Live simulation activities can be used for administrators, faculty and students in schools of nursing as well as administrators and health-care workers.

Information from this study can impact those living with dementia as well as their caregivers.

Most studies involving health-care students and empathy do not delineate between trait and situational empathy. This study is unique in that it measured both and sought a relationship between the two. Determining one's personal attributes such as trait empathy, can help students capitalize on their strengths and ultimately enhance patient care.

Exploring subjective experiences of people living with dementia through qualitative research has become increasingly common in recent decades. Nonetheless, researchers have shared a number of ethical challenges in involving people living with dementia in research. A concept that has been influential in discussions about ethics within the field of dementia care, in particular, is person-centredness. A person-centred approach reflects values of respect for personhood and the rights of a person and of building mutual trust and understanding. This chapter presents my experience of adopting person-centred ethical practices in a sensory ethnographic study involving older adults living with dementia. I highlight person-centred ethical considerations at the design stage of my study and occasions during the conduct of my research when research methods and processes were adapted to further meet the needs of the participants. A person-centred approach required that I continually assessed the need to make ethical decisions in every aspect of the research process throughout its duration. Building and drawing on positive researcher–participant relationships to inform those decisions and an adaptable research design allowing research practices to be adapted in situ were therefore essential.

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 study aims to evaluate the dementia assessment and diagnosis care provided to adults with intellectual disability. The authors selected recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) standards which could be evidenced in clinical notes and aimed to identify characteristics which may be associated with improved adherence to these recommendations.

The study population was adults with an intellectual disability who were diagnosed with dementia between January 2019 and December 2022 by a UK-based intellectual disability service. Data to demonstrate adherence to selected recommendations and demographic and clinical characteristics were extracted from electronic patient records.

The authors identified 41 individuals. A mean of six of the eight recommendations were adhered to. There was low adherence with structural imaging to support dementia subtype diagnosis (9 individuals, 22%). This may be linked with the low percentage of people diagnosed with vascular dementia (1 individual, 2%) despite a national figure of 20%. No demographic or clinical characteristics were associated with level of adherence recorded. The authors found incomplete recording of diagnostic clinical coding in electronic patient records. This may disadvantage this population, as they cannot be readily identified for post diagnostic support or resource allocation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine adherence to these NICE guidelines in this population.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a scoping review of the advantages and challenges of extra care housing (ECH) provision in the UK for people living with dementia. Access to suitable housing is a fundamental right for people living with dementia and can enable people to live as well as possible (Twyford and Porteus, 2021). Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of different models of housing with care has been identified as a research priority by people living with dementia (Barrett et al., 2016) but “there is no current consensus on the best model of specialist housing for people with dementia” (Twyford and Porteus, 2021, p. 29).

This scoping review identifies the advantages and disadvantages of living in ECH for people with dementia. It is the preliminary stage of a study that seeks to develop knowledge about different models of ECH for people living with dementia (Atkinson et al., 2021).

Advantages include the promotion of independence, flexible staffing, safety and security, social inclusion, physical design and integrated service provision. Disadvantages include barriers to entry, tensions between independence and support, managing advanced dementia, resourcing flexible care, managing social exclusion, loneliness and stigma and a disabling environment.

The scoping review reinforces the need for further research into different models of ECH provision in the UK for people living with dementia. The review provides insight that is of benefit to all stakeholders involved in ECH and contributes to the development of evidence-based provision called for in the recent All Party Parliamentary Group inquiry (Twyford and Porteus, 2021).

This scoping review summarises the current position for people living with dementia in ECH.

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.

This paper aims to report the findings of a survey study exploring perceptions about cognitive impairment. These findings are relevant to public health campaigns and education programmes.

A survey exploring respondents’ views and knowledge about mild cognitive impairment (MCI) was circulated via UK networks. A total of 417 respondents completed the survey, including people living with cognitive impairment (n = 10), care partners (n = 23), older adults (n = 83), younger adults (n = 83), general health-care professionals (n = 96), dementia specialist health-care professionals (n = 48) and dementia specialists (n = 40).

Respondents were more confident in their knowledge about dementia than cognitive impairment but wanted more information about both conditions. Younger adults were uncertain about many aspects of MCI, and were the most likely to view MCI as a normal part of ageing. Diet (45.1%, n = 188) and personal behaviour (63.8%, n = 266) were the least endorsed possible causes of MCI, suggesting a lack of awareness of lifestyle choices as risk factors for MCI.

The results highlight the need to provide education and awareness raising about MCI to enable people to seek help in a timely manner and be able to make informed lifestyle choices that may reduce their risk of MCI and dementia. Implementing education about MCI and dementia in schools is a key target, as younger people were the most uncertain or misinformed about these topics. It is clear that further public health initiatives around MCI are both warranted and welcomed by the general public.