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Identifying factors associated with lower dementia care costs is essential. We examined whether two caregiver factors were associated with lower costs of informal care.
Closer caregiver and care-recipient relationships predict lower informal costs of dementia care: the cache county dementia progression study (Follow this link if you have an Athens password). Alternatively contact the UHSM Academy Library for a copy of the article or call 0161 291 5778)
Due to the high prevalence of dementia, health care needs are increasing beyond existing formal resources.
The Academy Library does not currently subscribe to the journal that this article appears in, however we can most likely request it from another library. Please contact the UHSM Academy Library for more detail or call 0161 291 5778.
Childhood disability is relatively common, estimated to affect around 7% of children in the UK. Nevertheless, caring for a child with medical, social and/or educational needs is not something parents expect or plan for. Parent carers often describe this unanticipated role as ‘an ongoing battle’ to access information and services. The aim of this article is to raise awareness of resources that can support parent carers and their families.
From the beginning parent carers need accurate information about their child’s health and medical condition – what it is and what it means – and ongoing support in developing their understanding, so they can make informed decisions about treatments and therapies. Given that children have widely varying health conditions, and that parent carers and their families will also have a range of different needs and abilities, it is not possible to provide a comprehensive practical guide for professionals that will be relevant to, and meet the needs of, all the families they will encounter. Nevertheless we seek to offer clinicians some useful reflections on how they can support parent carers.
Resources for parents raising a disabled child in the UK (Follow this link if you have an Athens password). Alternatively contact the UHSM Academy Library for a copy of the article or call 0161 291 5778)
There are 835,000 people in the UK who have dementia at an annual cost to the UK economy of £26 billion. Most people with dementia live in the community with one in three living alone at home with much of the care being met by unpaid carers. Seventy percent of care home residents have dementia….Specialist care has a critical role in supporting primary care’s role in management. Specialist care includes old age psychiatry, geriatric medicine and neurology. In addition non-medical specialties have a significant role. These include community psychiatric nurses, occupational therapists, psychologists and pharmacists. Physiotherapy and speech and language therapists can be a part of management and assessment. In this chapter, we will describe the role of specialist care in dementia. There is no one model that fits the care pathways in dementia, and some of the collaborative models will be described.
The Academy Library does not have this book that this chapter appears in, however we can most likely request it from another library. Please contact the UHSM Academy Library for more detail or call 0161 291 5778.
The aim of this study was to discover and describe how patients, carers and case management nurses define safety and compare it to the traditional risk reduction and harm avoidance definition of safety.
Alternative perspectives of safety in home delivered health care: a sequential exploratory mixed method study (Follow this link if you have an Athens password). Alternatively contact the UHSM Academy Library for a copy of the article or call 0161 291 5778)
Across the UK, 1.2 million people who provide unpaid care are poverty-stricken, according to the report from the New Policy Institute (NPI).
Access the paper by clicking here 1.2 million unpaid carers living in poverty, says report
Family caregivers of persons with dementia often require support services to help ease the challenges of providing care. Although the efficacy of some dementia caregiver interventions seems apparent, evidence indicating which types of protocols can best meet the diverse needs of individual families is not yet available. Because of this gap, families must often turn to professionals for such guidance, but it remains unknown whether professionals from different disciplines are more inclined to recommend particular types of services than others. This study assessed whether recommendations of supportive interventions to hypothetical dementia family caregivers differed by professional discipline.Methods: In a cross-sectional survey design, a convenience sample of 422 dementia care professionals across the USA viewed up to 24 randomly selected, hypothetical scenarios that systematically varied characteristics of persons with dementia and their caregivers. For each scenario, 7 possible intervention recommendations were rated. A total of 6,890 scenarios were rated and served as the unit of analysis.Results: General linear models revealed that discipline was often a stronger predictor of how likely professionals were to recommend dementia caregiver interventions than caregiver, care recipient, or other professional characteristics. Psychotherapists tended to recommend psychoeducation more than other professionals, while those in medicine were more likely to recommend training of the person with dementia and psychotherapy.Conclusions: The heterogeneity in recommendations suggests that the professional source of information influences the types of support families are directed toward. Empirical evidence should inform these professional judgments to better achieve person-centered care for families.
The Academy Library does not currently subscribe to the journal that this article appears in, however we can most likely request it from another library. Please contact the UHSM Academy Library for more detail or call 0161 291 5778.
Almost 10 million women in the United States are caregivers for elders with dementia and many experience extreme stress that compromises their health. Acceptable and feasible interventions to teach them resourcefulness skills for managing stress may improve their health and facilitate continued caregiving. This study examined two commonly used methods for practicing skills taught during resourcefulness training (RT) to women caregivers of elders with dementia (n=63): journaling and digital voice recording. It also explored whether providing caregivers a choice between the two methods made it more acceptable or feasible. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected before, during, and after RT. Caregivers who recorded used more words (M=5446) but recorded fewer days (M=17) than those who journaled (M=2792 words and M=27 days). Similar concerns in relation to time management and practice method were expressed by women caregivers irrespective of practice method (journal versus recorder) or random versus choice condition. While journaling was more frequent than recording, more words were expressed during recordings. Perceived stress and depressive symptoms were unrelated to the number of practice days or word counts, suggesting RT acceptability and feasibility even for highly stressed or depressed caregivers. Because intervention feasibility is important for RT effectiveness testing, alternatives to the journaling and recording methods for practicing RT skills should be considered.
Resourcefulness Training for Women Dementia Caregivers: Acceptability and Feasibility of Two Methods. (Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 2016, 37(4)) (Follow this link if you have an Athens password). Alternatively contact the UHSM Academy Library for a copy of the article or call 0161 291 5778)
Understanding caregiver needs is essential when caring for people with dementia. The aim of this study was to identify family caregivers’ information needs as perceived by home care workers and the caregivers themselves. This study used a descriptive survey design and convenience sampling. The two groups of care providers were given a list of 48 items and asked to choose caregivers’ top 10 information needs.
Findings: Group 1 (n = 33 unpaid family caregivers) identified dealing with behavior changes and group 2 (n = 59 paid home care workers) identified providing personal care as most important. Conclusion
While differences between these groups emerged, both care providers chose more items related to needing help for the care recipient, than items related to needing help for the caregivers themselves, e.g., support group.
Information Needs of Family Caregivers of People With Dementia. (Rehabilitation Nursing, 2016, 41(3)) (Follow this link if you have an Athens password). Alternatively contact the UHSM Academy Library for a copy of the article or call 0161 291 5778)
An understanding of the specific dementia learning needs of home care staff is needed to plan relevant continuing education (CE) programs and supports. The study’s objective was to examine frequency and perceived competence in performing 20 dementia-related work activities, and identify CE priorities among home care staff. A cross-sectional survey of all home care staff in a primarily rural health region was used to gather data. Of 111 eligible staff, 82 participated (41 nursing aides, 41 nurses/case managers). To explore the relationship between activity frequency (F) and competence (C), the proportion of nurses and aides in four quadrants for each activity was examined: (1) low F-low C, (2) low F-high C, (3) high F-low C, and (4) high F-high C. Nurses/case managers were significantly more likely than aides to regularly perform 11 activities and to report high competence in 9 activities (p < .05); aides were more likely to assist with two activities (personal care and daily living activities). Thus, nurses/case managers performed a broader range of activities and reported higher competence overall. The top CE topic for both groups was recognizing differences between dementia subtypes, but rankings for most activities varied by group. Aides’ CE priorities indicated a desire to develop competence in low frequency-low competence activities, suggesting an expanded role in supporting dementia patients and their families. Nurses’ CE priority topics were in the high F-high C quadrant, indicating a need to further develop competence in these activities. Findings have implications for planning CE programming for home care providers. The Academy Library does not currently subscribe to the journal that this article appears in, however we can most likely request it from another library. Please contact the UHSM Academy Library for more detail or call 0161 291 5778.