Agency in dementia care: systematic review and meta-ethnography

Remote Evaluation of Sleep and Circadian Rhythms in Older Adults With Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia: Protocol for a Feasibility and Acceptability Mixed Methods Study

BACKGROUND

Sleep disturbances are a potentially modifiable risk factor for neurodegenerative dementia secondary to Alzheimer disease (AD) and Lewy body disease (LBD). Therefore, we need to identify the best methods to study sleep in this population.

OBJECTIVE

This study will assess the feasibility and acceptability of various wearable devices, smart devices, and remote study tasks in sleep and cognition research for people with AD and LBD.

METHODS

We will deliver a feasibility and acceptability study alongside a prospective observational cohort study assessing sleep and cognition longitudinally in the home environment. Adults aged older than 50 years who were diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) due to probable AD or LBD and age-matched controls will be eligible. Exclusion criteria include lack of capacity to consent to research, other causes of MCI or dementia, and clinically significant sleep disorders. Participants will complete a cognitive assessment and questionnaires with a researcher and receive training and instructions for at-home study tasks across 8 weeks. At-home study tasks include remote sleep assessments using wearable devices (electroencephalography headband and actigraphy watch), app-based sleep diaries, online cognitive assessments, and saliva samples for melatonin- and cortisol-derived circadian markers. Feasibility outcomes will be assessed relating to recruitment and retention, data completeness, data quality, and support required. Feedback on acceptability and usability will be collected throughout the study period and end-of-study interviews will be analyzed using thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Recruitment started in February 2022. Data collection is ongoing, with final data expected in February 2024 and data analysis and publication of findings scheduled for the summer of 2024.

CONCLUSIONS

This study will allow us to assess if remote testing using smart devices and wearable technology is a viable alternative to traditional sleep measurements, such as polysomnography and questionnaires, in older adults with and without MCI or dementia due to AD or LBD. Understanding participant experience and the barriers and facilitators to technology use for research purposes and remote research in this population will assist with the development of, recruitment to, and retention within future research projects studying sleep and cognition outside of the clinic or laboratory.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID)

DERR1-10.2196/52652.

Risk management and decision-making in dementia care

What constitutes a risk for a person living with dementia may be perceived and prioritised differently by nurses from varying clinical backgrounds. Furthermore, risk may be perceived differently according to the context. This article outlines some of the social, psychological and physical risk factors relevant to people living with dementia across the life course of the condition. It is important that nurses understand their role in identifying, assessing and managing risk and are aware of the resources, policies, legislation and processes designed to support decision-making and minimise the risk of harm to people living with dementia, their families and carers. The authors hope that this article will support nurses to become more confident in identifying risk while encouraging them to adopt a proactive and person-centred approach to risk assessment and management.

District nurses' experiences with involuntary treatment in dementia care at home: a qualitative descriptive study

BACKGROUND

Research shows that half of person(s) living with dementia (PLWD) receive care which they resist and/or have not given consent to, defined as involuntary treatment. District nurses play a key role in providing this care. Knowledge about how district nurses experience involuntary treatment is lacking. Therefore, the aim of this study was to describe the experiences of district nurses who used involuntary treatment for PLWD at home.

METHODS

A qualitative descriptive design using semi-structured interviews. Sixteen district nurses with experience in involuntary treatment for PLWD were recruited through purposive sampling. Data were analysed using the Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven.

RESULTS

District nurses' experiences with involuntary treatment were influenced by their involvement in the decision-making process. When they were involved, they considered involuntary treatment use to be appropriate care. However, at the moment that involuntary treatment use was started, district nurses were worried that its use was unjust since they wished to respect the wishes of the PLWD. Eventually, district nurses found, from a professional perspective, that involuntary treatment use was necessary, and that safety outweighed the autonomy of the PLWD. District nurses experienced dealing with this dilemma as stressful, due to conflicting values. If district nurses were not involved in the decision-making process regarding the use of involuntary treatment, family caregivers generally decided on its use. Often, district nurses perceived this request as inappropriate dementia care and they first tried to create a dialogue with the family caregivers to reach a compromise. However, in most cases, family caregivers stood by their request and the district nurse still provided involuntary treatment and found this difficult to tolerate.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results show that district nurses experience involuntary treatment use as stressful due to dealing with obverse values of safety versus autonomy. To prevent involuntary treatment use and obverse values, we need to increase their ethical awareness, communication skills, knowledge and skills with person-centred care so they can deal with situations that can evolve into involuntary treatment use in a person-centred manner.

'A real fine balancing act': A secondary qualitative analysis of power imbalance in comorbid cancer and dementia in an outpatient treatment setting

AIMS

Studies of health services reveal a focus on provision of scheduled care at the expense of patient need, placing the health service in a position of power and the patient as passive recipient. This secondary qualitative analysis of a focused ethnography draws on the Foucauldian concept of power as pervasive and relational, to examine how an imbalance of power is manifested in situations where people with both cancer and dementia are being treated for cancer.

DESIGN

Secondary qualitative analysis of a focused ethnographic study.

DATA SOURCES

In the original study, qualitative data were gathered from observation and interviews with people with cancer and dementia (n = 2), caregivers (n = 7) and staff (n = 20). The study was conducted in the outpatient departments of two teaching hospitals in England between January 2019 and July 2021. Data from all sources were analysed for this secondary analysis using constant comparison.

RESULTS

The principal theme was balance, encapsulating the competing priorities involved in delivering cancer treatment. There was tension between maintaining safety and ensuring an individual's right to treatment, and difficulty reconciling the needs of the system with the needs of individuals.

CONCLUSION

The pervasive nature of power can be harnessed to enhance the agency of people with cancer and dementia by incorporating principles of shared decision making.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION AND/OR PATIENT CARE

We recommend incorporating the principles of personalized care to achieve more equitable power relations, reduce health inequalities and ensure that cancer treatment offered to people with dementia is safe and appropriate.

REPORTING METHOD

EQUATOR (COREQ) guidelines have been used for reporting.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

Patients and the public were involved in designing the original research questions and the study protocol including documentation such as interview topic guides and participant information sheets.

Broadening and deepening the understanding of agency in dementia

Agency has become an essential component of discussions concerning selfhood, well-being, and care in dementia studies but the concept itself is rarely clearly defined and the use of this term can be confusing and conflicting. This paper outlines some of the key ways in which agency has been conceptualised in relation to dementia, highlighting the complexities surrounding this concept and focusing on agency in a way that is tied to our ideas about citizenship, legal and human rights. Seven key dimensions of agency are examined: embodiment, emotions, sense of agency, intentional conscious action, the social context of agency, decision-making and moral responsibility. Using a critical realist approach, this paper brings together the diverse ways in which agency has been understood into an interdisciplinary, laminated understanding of agency. This model is then used in an applied example demonstrating that this model can be used to identify the ways in which an arts intervention can support the agency of people living with dementia. This paper proposes that agency is layered, multidimensional and exists on a continuum.

Caregiver Burden and the Impact of Diagnostic Disclosure of Dementia: Why Primary Care Physicians Have a Moral Responsibility to Disclose

AbstractCurrently, the number of individuals affected by Alzheimer's disease is rapidly increasing, expected to reach 14 million in the United States within 30 years. In spite of this impending crisis, less than 50 percent of primary care physicians disclose the diagnosis of dementia to their patients. This failure negatively impacts not only patients but also caregivers, whom dementia patients require to help them meet their needs and who often serve as important decision makers, either as surrogates or as designated healthcare agents for the patient. If caregivers are not informed about and prepared to deal with the challenges they face, their health, both emotional and physical, is put at risk. We will argue that both patient and caregiver have the right to be informed of the diagnosis, as their interests are intertwined, especially as the disease progresses and the caregiver becomes the primary advocate for the patient. The caregiver of an individual with dementia therefore becomes intimately connected to the patient's autonomy in a way few caregivers of other diseases do. In this article, we will show that a timely and thorough disclosure of the diagnosis is morally obligated by the core principles of medical ethics. As the population ages, primary care physicians must see themselves in a triadic relationship with both the dementia patient and caregiver, recognizing that the interests of both are deeply interdependent.

Ageing, technology, and health: Advancing the concepts of autonomy and independence

The global pandemic expedited the adoption of AgeTech solutions that aim to help older adults maintain their autonomy and independence. This article examines the negative impact of the Western worldview of autonomy and independence on older adults. Negative impact can manifest as ageism and may be compounded by intersections of identities with race, gender, and culture. We propose an inclusive framework for health leaders, one that is not binary or categorical, but instead, on a continuum: (1) relational autonomy which assumes that relationships form one's identity; therefore, no one is autonomous to the exclusion of others, and (2) interdependence which proposes that one's lifestyle choice is supported by interreliance with aspects of one's environment. We examine two examples of AgeTech from the perspective of relational autonomy and interdependence and discuss how health leaders can use this inclusive framework to ensure that their services do not discriminate against older adults.

Impact of clinical symptoms and diagnosis: the electronic Person-Specific Outcome Measure (ePSOM) development programme

Introduction

Regulatory bodies recommend that outcome measures used in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) clinical trials capture clinically meaningful changes for the trial participant. However, commonly used outcome measures do not reflect the individual’s views on what matters to them individually. The aim of the electronic Person-Specific Outcome Measure (ePSOM) programme is to better understand what outcomes matter to patients in early Alzheimer’s disease.

Methods

As part of the ePSOM programme, we designed and ran an online study to understand what matters to individuals when developing new treatments for AD. The ePSOM survey ran Aug 2019–Dec 2019 (UK) and collected primarily free text responses which were analysed using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. In this paper, we focus our analyses on individuals who reported having a neurodegenerative disease diagnosis (primarily Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or AD), reporting the most frequent and most important brain health priorities for this group. Due to a small sample size, the Diagnosis group was analysed as a whole. Finally, we compared the Diagnosis group to an age and gender matched control group using chi-squared tests to look for any differences between the Diagnosis and control groups’ priorities.

Results

The survey was completed by 5808 respondents, of whom 167 (2.9%) (women n = 91, men n = 69, other n = 7) had received one of our pre-defined neurodegenerative disease diagnosis: most commonly MCI n = 52, 1.1% (mean age 69.42, SD = 10.8); or Alzheimer’s disease n = 48, 1.0% (mean age 71.24, SD = 9.79). Several thematic clusters were significantly more important for the target diagnostic group, e.g.: Expressing opinions; and less important, e.g., Cognitive Games.

Conclusion

We conclude there are a range of outcomes which individuals consider important and what potential new treatments should help maintain or improve, suggesting that outcomes that matter shift along the preclinical, prodromal and overt dementia continuum. This has important implications for the development of outcome measures in long term prevention studies that last several years where participants may pass through different stages of disease. In the final stage of our project, we will design an electronic outcomes app which will employ the methodology tested in the large-scale survey to capture what matters to individuals about their brain health at an individual level.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41687-022-00433-2.

Written discharge communication of diagnostic and decision-making information for persons living with dementia during hospital to skilled nursing facility transitions

Hospital-to-skilled nursing facility (SNF) transitions constitute a vulnerable point in care for people with dementia and often precede important care decisions. These decisions necessitate accurate diagnostic/decision-making information, including dementia diagnosis, power of attorney for health care (POAHC), and code status; however, inter-setting communication during hospital-to-SNF transitions is suboptimal. This retrospective cohort study examined omissions of diagnostic/decision-making information in written discharge communication during hospital-to-SNF transitions. Omission rates were 22% for dementia diagnosis, 82% and 88% for POAHC and POAHC activation respectively, and 70% for code status. Findings highlight the need to clarify and intervene upon causes of hospital-to-SNF communication gaps.

Making clinical care decisions with people living with dementia in hospital: An integrative literature review

BACKGROUND

As our population ages, the percentage of hospitalised patients diagnosed with dementia is expected to rise. However, there is emerging evidence that people living with dementia may experience discrimination and exclusion from decisions about their clinical care. Although dementia affects cognition, many patients living with dementia want to participate in decision-making processes relating to their clinical care in hospital.

OBJECTIVE

Identify the processes associated with making decisions about clinical care with people living with dementia in hospital.

DESIGN

An integrative literature review.

DATA SOURCES

Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Scopus, EMBASE (Ovid), MEDLINE (PubMED), PsycINFO and HeinOnline.

REVIEW METHOD

One author conducted the initial screening of titles, and two authors screened in subsequent rounds for abstracts and full text. The process of making clinical decisions was the outcome of interest. Articles about people with cognitive impairment that did not include dementia, or decisions such as discharge planning or end of life care were excluded. An inductive synthesis of the findings was undertaken.

RESULTS

Nine articles were identified for review and included expert opinion or hypothetical discussion (n=5), cross-sectional survey research (n=3), and qualitative research (n=1). Three themes were identified: capacity for decision-making is conceptualised as 'all or nothing'; there are no universal principles for including people living with dementia in decision-making in acute care settings; and autonomy is recognised but superseded by beneficence.

CONCLUSIONS

Contemporary hospital practice is focused on determining capacity for decisions, with an all or nothing attitude to capacity, effectively excluding many people living with dementia from participation in decisions. While there is limited evidence to guide clinicians in this complex and situated process of making clinical decisions, emerging models of supported decision-making require further evaluation in the hospital setting.

The Seven Selves of Dementia

The self is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, encompassing a variety of cognitive processes and psychosocial influences. Considering this, there is a multiplicity of "selves," the current review suggesting that seven fundamental self-processes can be identified that further our understanding of the experience of dementia. These include (1) an embodied self, manifest as corporeal awareness; (2) an agentic self, related to being an agent and influencing life circumstances; (3) an implicit self, linked to non-conscious self-processing; (4) a critical self, which defines the core of self-identity; (5) a surrogate self, based on third-person perspective information; (6) an extended self, including external objects or existences that are incorporated into the self; and, finally, (7) an emergent self, a property of the self-processes that give rise to the sense of a unified self. These are discussed in relation to self-awareness and their use in making sense of the experience of dementia.

Enacting agency: movement, dementia, and interaction

Background: Arts-based programs can counter the dominant narrative of loss associated with dementia, in part through fostering expressions of agency. This study uses social science theories of interaction between structure and agency to examine how an arts-based movement program, entitled Mouvement de passage, supports agency among individuals with dementia. Methods: Ethnographic methods were used to trace how participants enact agency within the structure of the movement program. The program's sessions were video recorded and iteratively analyzed. Results: Participants expressed their agency in three ways: 1) transforming the exercise's structure according to individual interests and desires; 2) resisting the exercise's structure; and 3) improvising movements collectively. Conclusions: The movements of individuals with dementia were shaped by both program structure and individual/collective expressions of agency. The design of Mouvement de passage, based on open-ended structures and voluntary participation, provides a template for developing interventions that foster agency among these persons.

Doing their damnedest to seek change: How group identity helps people with dementia confront public stigma and maintain purpose

Dominant messages about the capabilities of those with dementia post-diagnosis are often dehumanising and focused on mental declines. Additionally, carers for those with dementia are more likely to be involved in consultations and enquiries about the condition. This study helps to challenge stigmatising cultural messages by reporting upon the experiences of 13 adults diagnosed with early-stage dementia and how their involvement with empowerment groups in Northern Ireland has led to their involvement in consultations with policy makers and educational opportunities with the wider public. The study finds that this not only helps in challenging stereotypical ideas about dementia, as well as informing others, but also gives a sense of purpose to adults in their post-diagnosis lives. It is further noted that group identity helps give confidence and amplifies the voice of those who take part, allowing members to adopt a shared narrative and learn from each other.

Experiences of people with memory disorders and their spouse carers on influencing formal care: "They ask my wife questions that they should ask me"

Background

People with memory disorders often need care and help from family carers and health and social care providers. Due to the deterioration of cognitive capacity and language skills, they may be unable to convey their thoughts and care preferences to other people. As a result, their agency may become restricted. We investigated the descriptions provided by people with memory disorders and spousal carers of their influence on care in encounters with formal care providers.

Methods

Qualitative thematic analysis was used to identify, analyze, and report themes that describe encounters with professionals in different social or healthcare environments. In-depth interview data were gathered from 19 spouse carers and 15 persons with memory disorders.

Findings

Three themes out of four describe how people with memory disorders and their spouse carers influence formal care: Acquiescence, negotiating care decisions, and taking control. The fourth theme describes lack of influence. People with memory disorders and their spouse carers have ways to influence care, but spouse carers identified more ways of doing so. Both either accepted and followed the care guidelines by the formal carers or took control of the situation and made their own decisions. Spouse carers also sought to influence care decisions through negotiations with formal carers. When formal carers’ decisions were experienced as inconsistent or the rationale of their actions difficult to follow, the possibilities to influence care were limited.

Conclusions

People with memory disorders and their family carers are often in a disadvantaged position as they lack power over the health and social care decision-making during the illness, which is often guided by structural factors. To support the agency of people with memory disorders and to promote shared decision-making, clarification of the service structure and clearer communication between the different parties involved in care are required.

The compound role of a coordinator for home-dwelling persons with dementia and their informal caregivers: qualitative study

Background

As the number of persons with dementia is increasing, there has been a call for establishing sustainable clinical pathways for coordinating care and support for this group. The LIVE@Home.Path trial is a multicomponent, multi-disciplinary intervention combining learning, innovation, volunteer support and empowerment. To implement the intervention, a municipal coordinator has a crucial role. Implementation research on multicomponent interventions is complex and we conducted a qualitative study, aiming to explore the coordinator role and how a coordinator may empower persons with dementia in decision-making processes.

Methods

Qualitative program evaluation combined with a hermeneutic interpretive approach was chosen as methodological approach. Sixteen dyads, consisting of the person with dementia and their main informal caregiver received the intervention by two coordinators. Of these, six dyads, three informal caregivers alone and the two care coordinators along with their leader, in sum, eighteen persons, participated in in-depth or focus group interviews, sharing their experiences after 6 months intervention.

Results

We found that the coordinators fulfilled three functions for the participating dyads: being a safety net, meaning that the dyads might have little needs at the moment, but found safety in a relation to someone who might help if the situation should change; being a pathfinder, meaning that they supported the dyads in finding their way through the complicated system of care and support services; being a source for emotional care and support, meaning that they listened, acknowledged and gave counsel in times of distress. The coordinators emphasized that a trusting leader and work environment was crucial for them to fulfill these functions. We also found that it was challenging for the coordinators to build a relation to the persons with dementia in order to pursue genuine empowerment in decision-making processes.

Conclusion

We found the framework for follow-up to be a feasible starting point for establishing empowering coordination and a sustainable care pathway for persons with dementia and their informal caregivers. More meeting points between coordinator and person with dementia should be pursued in order to fulfill the persons’ fundamental rights to participate in decision-making processes.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-020-05913-z.

Measuring the well-being of people with dementia: a conceptual scoping review

BACKGROUND

Enabling people with dementia to 'live well' is a policy and research priority in many countries. However, instruments for measuring outcomes of psychosocial interventions designed to promote well-being in dementia are often derived from a symptom-focused, loss/deficit approach, or from broad quality of life concepts. A pan-European dementia working group called for research on the development of an alternative asset/strengths-based conceptual framework of well-being in dementia. This paper takes forward this recommendation by developing such a framework and using this to map relevant self-report outcome measures.

METHODS

Three scoping reviews of published studies were conducted iteratively. First, we examined the literature on lived experiences of well-being and quality of life in people with dementia and then the wider dementia literature for application of well-being constructs. The synthesised findings generated conceptual domains of well-being in people with dementia. Corresponding self-report instruments used in dementia research were scoped, categorised within the conceptual framework and their potential value in measuring outcomes for people with dementia was examined.

FINDINGS

Six conceptual domains for the measurement of well-being and 35 self-report instruments that have been used with people with dementia were identified. Six instruments were developed specifically for people with dementia, five were derived from the gerontological literature and 24 from the well-being literature. Fifteen instruments and one sub-scale have been examined for psychometric properties amongst people with dementia. To date, 20 have been used as outcome measures, with seven measuring change over time. A number of identified instruments utilise traditional retrospective Likert-scaling response formats, limiting their potential for use with some groups of people with dementia.

CONCLUSION

An assets/strengths-based framework is presented, outlining structural domains for selecting self-report measures of well-being in people with dementia. It provides a foundation for enhancing research into processes and outcomes of psychosocial interventions, including instrument development, more precise matching of intervention aims with outcome measurement, and newer technology-based 'in-the-moment' measurement.

Personhood and Dementia Care: A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis of the Perspectives of People With Dementia

Background and Objectives

Personhood is considered the cornerstone of person-centered care for people with dementia. However, there is little research on personhood in dementia care from the perspective of the person with dementia themselves. This article presents a qualitative evidence synthesis of the experiences and perceptions of people with dementia on personhood in dementia care.

Research Design and Methods

A systematic search of nine databases was conducted. In addition to initial screening, CART analysis was used to determine the most relevant papers. Thematic synthesis was conducted on 20 papers. The CASP tool was used to examine the quality of the included papers. GRADE CERQual analysis examined confidence in the review findings.

Results

People with dementia experience many changes due to the disease and the experience of being cared for in different settings. Personhood is affirmed through personal interactions with family, friends, other care recipients, and formal caregivers, as well as through continued engagement in social and occupational roles.

Discussion and Implications

The review has important implications for practice, regulation, and policy. The person and their personhood should be protected rather than undermined, and relationships should be enhanced not diminished by the formal care process. The focus should be on creating and amplifying opportunities for people with dementia to affirm the self through interactions with others and engaging in occupational and social roles to ensure continuity of self.

Dementia, Help with Financial Management, and Financial Well-Being

This paper uses the National Health and Aging Trends Study to determine whether older individuals with dementia receive help from their informal caregivers in managing their finances and how this assistance - or the lack of it - is correlated with financial well-being. The study finds that the vast majority of those with dementia do receive help managing their finances. Those with dementia who receive help are indistinguishable from those without dementia in terms of experiencing financial difficulties. However, the minority without help are over twice as likely to experience severe financial hardship, even controlling for other factors.