2020 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 65-75
This study aimed to clarify the effect that the build-up of self-determination support by nursing and care staff at long-term care health facilities had on elderly people with dementia and the challenges of implementing this support. Twenty-seven staff members performing interventions provided 8 weeks of support in which they presented a choice of actions to elderly people with dementia in four situations including snacking and changing clothes, and asked these elderly people why they made their particular choice. The endpoints were Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), frontal assessment battery (FAB), mental function impairment scale (MENFIS), and Dementia Happy Check (DHC), which were evaluated by intragroup comparisons between scores at baseline, during intervention, and during follow-up.
The 16 elderly people with dementia who formed the analysis set underwent a mean number of 79.6 interventions with an implementation level of 63.5%. When compared with before the intervention, significant improvement after the intervention was seen for the scores for FAB (p = 0.007), MENFIS (p = 0.014), and DHC (p = 0.005). Changes in the elderly people with dementia perceived by the staff included “an increase in the words ‘thank you’” and “smiles were seen when an opportunity for choice was presented.” These results demonstrate that a build-up in self-determination support in daily life has a positive effect on the lives of elderly people with dementia.
