TY - JOUR
T1 - Post-diagnostic allied health interventions for people with dementia in Australia
T2 - A spotlight on current practice
AU - Cations, Monica
AU - Radisic, Gorjana
AU - De La Perrelle, Lenore
AU - Laver, Kate E.
AU - The Agents of Change Collaborative Group
AU - Shepherd, Karen
AU - Methorst, Fiona
AU - Baldwin, Emma
AU - Maher-Norris, Danelle
AU - Gibson, Joyce
AU - Marsh, Ebony
AU - Brown, Wendy
AU - Palagyi, Jaimee
AU - Arndt, Pamela Maryse
AU - Vladcoff, Kerri Anne
AU - Sabja, Mariana Perez
AU - Caruana, Emily
AU - Tung, Jean
AU - Doljanin, Jessica
AU - Anderson, Jennifer
AU - Brittain, Jennifer
AU - Comerford, Lucy
AU - Wharley, Allison
AU - McKenzie, Erin
AU - Wong, Su Min
AU - Seeliger, Megan
AU - Delgado, Vilma
AU - Kaizik, Cassandra
AU - Kuo, Katherine
AU - Millen, Anne
N1 - (CC-BY 4.0) This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
PY - 2019/9/4
Y1 - 2019/9/4
N2 - Objective: The Clinical Practice Guidelines for Dementia in Australia provide evidence-based recommendations for the assessment, diagnosis, and care of people with dementia and their informal carers. The extent to which current Australian post-diagnosis care reflects these recommendations is not well understood. This brief report provides a snapshot of current practice related to three key recommendations from the Guidelines: occupational therapy, exercise, and informal carer support. Results: Nursing (n = 3) and allied health clinicians (n = 29) provided data about 1114 consultations with people with dementia and/or informal carers over a 9-month study period. Results showed that delivery of evidence-based dementia care remains a significant challenge in Australia. Clinicians found it difficult to tailor exercise interventions to overcome cognitive and organisational barriers to adherence during and between consultations. Occupational therapists primarily focussed on functional assessment rather than on delivering evidence-based interventions. Clinicians also found it difficult to identify and address the array of needs reported by informal carers, especially when the person with dementia is present during the consultation. Though these results are reported by a selected sample, they emphasise the need for innovative knowledge translation strategies to facilitate widespread quality improvement in post-diagnosis dementia care. Trial registration Registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry 21 February 2018 (ACTRN12618000268246)
AB - Objective: The Clinical Practice Guidelines for Dementia in Australia provide evidence-based recommendations for the assessment, diagnosis, and care of people with dementia and their informal carers. The extent to which current Australian post-diagnosis care reflects these recommendations is not well understood. This brief report provides a snapshot of current practice related to three key recommendations from the Guidelines: occupational therapy, exercise, and informal carer support. Results: Nursing (n = 3) and allied health clinicians (n = 29) provided data about 1114 consultations with people with dementia and/or informal carers over a 9-month study period. Results showed that delivery of evidence-based dementia care remains a significant challenge in Australia. Clinicians found it difficult to tailor exercise interventions to overcome cognitive and organisational barriers to adherence during and between consultations. Occupational therapists primarily focussed on functional assessment rather than on delivering evidence-based interventions. Clinicians also found it difficult to identify and address the array of needs reported by informal carers, especially when the person with dementia is present during the consultation. Though these results are reported by a selected sample, they emphasise the need for innovative knowledge translation strategies to facilitate widespread quality improvement in post-diagnosis dementia care. Trial registration Registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry 21 February 2018 (ACTRN12618000268246)
KW - Aged care
KW - Allied health
KW - Carer support
KW - Dementia
KW - Exercise
KW - Occupational therapy
KW - Post-diagnosis care
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85071751095&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/NHMRC/1135667
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/NHMRC/1327
U2 - 10.1186/s13104-019-4588-2
DO - 10.1186/s13104-019-4588-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 31484587
AN - SCOPUS:85071751095
VL - 12
JO - BMC Research Notes
JF - BMC Research Notes
SN - 1756-0500
IS - 1
M1 - 559
ER -