“Agitation is a syndrome defined by a cluster of things including
verbal and physical aggression, restlessness as well as shouting
associated with distress and anxiety,” said lead author Clive
Ballard. “It profoundly affects people with dementia and their
quality of living.”
Delusions and hallucinations, euphoria and disinhibition, aberrant
behavior as well as night-time disturbances and eating abnormalities
are just a few indications of neuropsychosis, he told Reuters
Health.
In the UK, about one third of people with dementia live in nursing
homes, and in the U.S., close to two thirds of people in nursing
homes who are covered by Medicare have dementia, Ballard’s team
writes in PLoS Medicine. Despite an established link between quality
of life and neuropsychiatric symptoms, as well as risk of falls and
mortality, few trials have looked at quality of life interventions,
they note.
To test an approach that emphasizes so-called person-centered care
for dementia patients and special training for nursing home staff,
Ballard’s team recruited 69 nursing homes in the UK and randomly
assigned roughly half to implement a program the researchers
devised.

In facilities implementing the program, staff received training in
techniques for facilitating social interaction and education in the
effects and risks of antipsychotic medications. In the other
facilities, patients continued to receive their usual care.
Of 847 patients in the initial study group, 533 completed the study
and were evaluated over a nine-month period - once before the
intervention and then again at its conclusion.
“A key element of this research is that we worked alongside
caregivers for nine months to embed these learned elements into
everyday practice,” said Ballard, a professor, pro-vice chancellor
and executive dean at University of Exeter Medical School. “This was
essential because just a one-off training seminar or a training book
- without this mentoring - would not have resulted in a successful
intervention,” he said by email.
A “person-centered” approach incorporates the individual patients’
wants and needs as a way to facilitate healing and, at times, these
wants and needs are prioritized over and above healthcare
professional goals, Ballard said.
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The staff training included an educational process designed to help
clinicians understand patients’ interests and hobbies, then use that
knowledge to develop a personalized care plan.
“It also has the advantage of building stronger relationships
between dementia patients and care staff,” Ballard said.
Training also covered risks associated with antipsychotic medication
used to treat agitation. These kinds of medications, including
Abilify, Seroquel and Risperdal, can increase the risk of falls and
fractures, chest infections, pneumonia and an acceleration in
cognitive decline. There’s also evidence that if dementia patients
become over-reliant on antipsychotic meds, their risk of stroke and
of death rises, the researchers note.
This fact alone warrants studying non-pharmacological approaches,
they write.
Patients who received the intervention showed statistically
meaningful decreases in agitation and neuropsychiatric symptoms and
increased quality of life after nine months compared to the
usual-care group. But there were no differences in use of
antipsychotic medications, although use was quite low to start, at
less than 10 percent.
“Changes in brain chemistry and structure are part of the disease,”
Ballard said. “There’s a reduced ability to understand and deal with
challenging situations and the physical environment in care homes
can make people feel isolated, frustrated, bored.”
These circumstances all add to the heightened sensitivity of
agitation, neuropsychiatric disturbances and lower quality of life
among dementia patients living under care.

But these results show that when people are engaged and socially
stimulated, the outcome can be completely different, he added.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2E92LvZ PLoS Medicine, online February 6,
2018.
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