Hu CJ, Chang LH, Lo YT, Wang JJ. Exploring Healthcare Providers' Difficulties and Strategies when Caring for Community-Dwelling People With Dementia Who are at Risk of Getting Lost.
J Appl Gerontol 2024:7334648241261142. [PMID:
39023860 DOI:
10.1177/07334648241261142]
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Abstract
Caring for patients with dementia at risk of getting lost is challenging for community healthcare providers. Through semi-structured interviews with 25 participants, we examined the challenges faced by these providers and the strategies they employed. We identified the following themes of challenging parts: (a) the disturbance caused by behavioral and psychological symptoms in dementia; (b) difficulty in helping older family caregivers to keep the patient from going out; (c) difficulty in changing the attitudes of the family members; families' unawareness of the risk of getting lost. We also identified the following strategies to mitigate these themes: (a) detecting the risk of getting lost through early assessment; (b) encouraging the family to use resources or devices to prevent the patient from getting lost; (c) educating the family to manage behavior and psychological symptoms of dementia; (d) strengthening the patient's crisis awareness.
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