In Dutch policy and at the societal level, informal caregivers are ideally seen as essential team members when creating, together with professionals, co-ordinated support plans for the persons for whom they care. However, collaboration between professionals and informal caregivers is not always effective. This can be explained by the observation that caregivers and professionals have diverse backgrounds and frames of reference regarding providing care. This thematic synthesis sought to examine and understand how professionals experience collaboration with informal caregivers to strengthen the care triad. PubMed, Medline, PsycINFO, Embase, Cochrane/Central and CINAHL were searched systematically until May 2015, using specific key words and inclusion criteria.Twenty-two articles were used for thematic synthesis. Seven themes revealed different reflections by professionals illustrating the complex, multi-faceted and dynamic interface of professionals and informal care. Working in collaboration with informal caregivers requires professionals to adopt a different way of functioning. Specific attention should be paid to the informal caregiver, where the focus now is mainly on the client for whom they care. This is difficult to attain due to different restrictions experienced by professionals on policy and individual levels. Specific guidelines and training for the professionals are necessary in the light of the current policy changes in the Netherlands, where an increased emphasis is placed on informal care structures. K E Y W O R D Scollaboration, diversity, informal care, professional role

Objective to gain insight into what older adults after hip fracture perceive as most beneficial to their recovery to everyday life. Design qualitative research approach. Setting six skilled nursing facilities. Participants 19 older community dwelling older adults (aged 65–94), who had recently received geriatric rehabilitation after hip fracture. Methods semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 older adults after hip fracture. Coding techniques based on constructivist grounded theory were applied. Results four categories were derived from the data: ‘restrictions for everyday life’, ‘recovery process’, ‘resources for recovery’ and ‘performing everyday activities’. Physical and psychological restrictions are consequences of hip fracture that older adults have struggled to address during recovery. Three different resources were found to be beneficial for recovery; ‘supporting and coaching’, ‘myself’ and ‘technological support’. These resources influenced the recovery process. Having successful experiences during recovery led to doing everyday activities in the same manner as before; unsuccessful experiences led to ceasing certain activities altogether. Conclusion participants highlight their own role (‘myself’) as essential for recovery. Additionally, coaching provides emotional support, which boosts self-confidence in performing everyday activities. Furthermore, technology can encourage older adults to become more active and being engaged in the recovery process. The findings suggest that more attention should be paid to follow-up interventions after discharge from inpatient rehabilitation to support older adults in finding new routines in their everyday activities. A conceptual model is presented and provides an understanding of the participants’ experiences and perspectives concerning their process of recovery after hip fracture to everyday life.

The purpose of this article was to describe a child-friendly modified constraint-induced movement therapy protocol that is combined with goal-directed task-specific bimanual training (mCIMT-BiT). This detailed description elucidates the approach and supports various research reports. This protocol is used in a Pirate play group setting and aims to extend bimanual skills in play and self-care activities for children with cerebral palsy and unilateral spastic paresis of the upper limb. To illustrate the content and course of treatment and its effect, a case report of a two-year-old boy is presented. After the eight-week mCIMT-BiT intervention, the child improved the capacity of his affected arm and hand in both quantitative and qualitative terms and his bimanual performance in daily life as assessed by the Assisting Hand Assessment, ABILHAND-Kids, Video Observations Aarts and Aarts Module Determine Developmental Disregard, Canadian Occupational Performance Measure and Goal Attainment Scaling. It is argued that improvement of affected upper-limb capacity in a test situation may be achieved and retained relatively easily, but it may take a lot more training to stabilize the results and automate motor control of the upper limb. Future studies with groups of children should elaborate on these intensity and generalization issues.

BackgroundThe performance of activities of daily living (ADL) at home is important for the recovery of older individuals after hip fracture. However, 20–90% of these individuals lose ADL function and never fully recover. It is currently unknown to what extent occupational therapy (OT) with coaching based on cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) improves recovery. The same holds for sensor monitoring-based coaching in addition to OT. Here, we describe the design of a study investigating the effect of sensor monitoring embedded in an OT rehabilitation program on the recovery of ADL among older individuals after hip fracture.Methods/ DesignSix nursing homes will be randomized in a three-arm stepped wedge cluster randomized trial. All nursing homes will initially provide standard care. At designated time points, nursing homes, successively and in random order, will cross over to the provision of OT and at the next time point, to sensor monitoring-enhanced OT. A total of 288 older individuals, previously living alone in the community, who after a hip fracture were admitted to a geriatric rehabilitation ward for a short-term rehabilitation, will be enrolled.Individuals in the first intervention group (OTc) will participate in an OT rehabilitation program with coaching based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles. In the sensor monitoring group, sensor monitoring is added to the OT intervention (OTcsm). Participants will receive a sensor monitoring system consisting of (i) an activity monitor during nursing home stay, (ii) a sensor monitoring system at home and a (iii) a web-based feedback application. These components will be embedded in the OT. The OT consists of a weekly session with an occupational therapist during the nursing home stay followed by four home visits and four telephone consultations. The primary outcome is patient-perceived daily functioning at 6 months, assessed using the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM).DiscussionAs far as we know, this study is the first large-scale stepped wedge trial, studying the effect of sensor monitoring embedded in an OT coaching program. The study will provide new knowledge on the combined intervention of sensor monitoring and coaching in OT as a part of a rehabilitation program to enable older individuals to perform everyday activities and to remain living independently after hip fracture.Trial registration numberNetherlands National Trial Register, NTR 5716 Date registered: April 1 2016

Objectives to test the effects of an intervention involving sensor monitoring-informed occupational therapy on top of a cognitive behavioural treatment (CBT)-based coaching therapy on daily functioning in older patients after hip fracture. Design, setting and patients three-armed randomised stepped wedge trial in six skilled nursing facilities, with assessments at baseline (during admission) and after 1, 4 and 6 months (at home). Eligible participants were hip fracture patients ≥ 65 years old. Interventions patients received care as usual, CBT-based occupational therapy or CBT-based occupational therapy with sensor monitoring. Interventions comprised a weekly session during institutionalisation, followed by four home visits and four telephone consultations over three months. Main outcomes and measures the primary outcome was patient-reported daily functioning at 6 months, assessed with the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure. Results a total of 240 patients (mean[SD] age, 83.8[6.9] years were enrolled. At baseline, the mean Canadian Occupational Performance Measure scores (range 1–10) were 2.92 (SE 0.20) and 3.09 (SE 0.21) for the care as usual and CBT-based occupational therapy with sensor monitoring groups, respectively. At six months, these values were 6.42 (SE 0.47) and 7.59 (SE 0.50). The mean patient-reported daily functioning in the CBT-based occupational therapy with sensor monitoring group was larger than that in the care as usual group (difference 1.17 [95% CI (0.47-1.87) P = 0.001]. We found no significant differences in daily functioning between CBT-based occupational therapy and care as usual. Conclusions and relevance among older patients recovering from hip fracture, a rehabilitation programme of sensor monitoring-informed occupational therapy was more effective in improving patient-reported daily functioning at six months than to care as usual. Trial registration Dutch National Trial Register, NTR 5716.

These results provide new evidence that older persons experience sensor monitoring as an opportunity or strategy that contributes to independent living and that does not disturb their natural way of living. Based on this study, the development of new strategies to provide older people with access to their sensor data must be further explored.

No abstract

Studies on the effectiveness of sensor monitoring to support people in daily functioning remain scarce. A road map for further development is proposed.