Family members face multiple burdens while caring for their demented relatives and need more professional support during the course of the disease trajectory as well as in the terminal phase.

The results of research in this program show the relevance of including caregivers in interventions and the importance of communication for the QoL of people with dementia.

In summary, CODEM is a reliable and valid instrument that can be used to collect important information with the ultimate aim of supporting communication with people with dementia.

Global aging, particularly in Japan and Europe, an associated shortage of qualified healthcare personnel, and a general preference for living at home, have all sparked an interest in the possibilities offered by robot therapy in improving quality of life. To date, however, both evidence-based research and psychological theory building on whether, and if so how and why, robots can influence the life of the elderly are rather sparse and scattered across many scientific disciplines and countries. The present paper argues in favor of a psychological, cross-cultural framework for evidence-based analyses of emotional robots. Against the background of this framework, we present building blocks for an evidence-based approach to the assessment of emotional robots and discuss interactions between evidence- and deployment-based research.

Environmental pollution with plastic waste has gained increasing attention, as the contamination of aquatic habitats poses a challenge to these ecosystems. Plastic waste has direct negative effects on animals such as reduced growth rate, fecundity or life span. However, the indirect effects of plastic waste, which has the ability to sorb chemicals from the surrounding media, on chemical communication have yet to be investigated. Chemical communication is crucial for aquatic organisms, e.g., to avoid predation. The planktonic water flea Daphnia (Crustacea), an important link between trophic levels, relies on info-chemicals (kairomones) to assess its current predation risk and to form inducible defences. We show that plastic waste, composed of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) interferes with the formation of inducible defences in Daphnia longicephala when exposed to a combination of kairomones of Notonecta glauca and plastic waste. D . longicephala shows a reduction in all defensive traits, including body length, crest width and time until primiparity, compared to exposure to solely kairomone conditioned media. Plastic waste in the absence of kairomones had no effect on defensive traits. Since it is vital to adjust these defences to the current predation risk, any misperception can have far-reaching ecological consequences. Therefore, plastic waste can have indirect effects on organisms, which may manifest at the community level.

This study examines the relationship between capacity to consent to treatment as measured by the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT-T) and severity of cognitive impairment as measured with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). It also looks at the role of verbal retrieval in this relationship. We hypothesized that the often-quoted correlation between the MacCAT-T and the MMSE lies mainly in the joint dependence on verbal retrieval ability. Potential subjects were recruited from memory clinics, senior citizen meeting places, and a university program for seniors. Data of 149 people over 54 years, 49 of whom had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or mixed dementia, were used. The relationship between capacity to consent to treatment, verbal retrieval, and MMSE was examined using a structural equation modeling framework. The findings suggest that verbal retrieval is a confounding method factor. In the informed consent process for people with dementia, verbal memory loads should be minimized to provide a more valid measure of their capacity to consent to treatment.

The qualification of staff members in German nursing homes to be multiplicators for the TANDEM train-the-trainer program for dementia-specific communication skills has a beneficial influence on social competencies, mental stressors at work, and occupational mental stress of staff who care for dementia patients and may contribute to a sustainable implementation of dementia-specific social competencies.

Communication and communication behaviors in situational contexts are essential conditions for well-being and quality of life in people with dementia. Measuring methods, however, are limited. The CODEM instrument, a standardized observational communication behavior assessment tool, was developed and evaluated on the basis of the current state of research in dementia care and social-communicative behavior. Initially, interrater reliability was examined by means of videoratings (N = 10 people with dementia). Thereupon, six caregivers in six German nursing homes observed 69 residents suffering from dementia and used CODEM to rate their communication behavior. The interrater reliability of CODEM was excellent (mean κ = .79; intraclass correlation = .91). Statistical analysis indicated that CODEM had excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .95). CODEM also showed excellent convergent validity (Pearson’s R = .88) as well as discriminant validity (Pearson’s R = .63). Confirmatory factor analysis verified the two-factor solution of verbal/content aspects and nonverbal/relationship aspects. With regard to the severity of the disease, the content and relational aspects of communication exhibited different trends. CODEM proved to be a reliable, valid, and sensitive assessment tool for examining communication behavior in the field of dementia. CODEM also provides researchers a feasible examination tool for measuring effects of psychosocial intervention studies that strive to improve communication behavior and well-being in dementia.