An Evaluation of the Use of the Natural Helping Network Model to Enhance the Well-Being of Nursing Home Residents

Abstract

This article describes and evaluates the Buddy Program, which uses a natural helping network model to enhance the well-being of persons in nursing homes. Thirty-six nondemented patients ("buddies") and 33 persons with dementia completed the 6-month study that involved an educational program for the buddies and regular meetings between buddy-dementia patient pairs. Over the 6 months, compared to a matched control group, the dementia patients showed no advantage on any of the seven outcome measures and actually had significantly more depressive symptoms and greater nursing home dissatisfaction. The nondementia buddies showed no differences from the controls on any of the outcome measures. The results suggest that natural helping network models may not be easily imported into nursing home settings.

A history of patient education by health professionals in Europe and North America: From authority to shared decision making education

“…This process finally led to shared decision making, where patients were actively involved in decisions with their care provider on the basis of equality and leaving the paternalistic model [20,21]. In addition, the influence of important people around the patient, such as partner, children and the broader social network, was recognized and even incorporated into behavior change interventions such as buddy systems [22,23].…”

Coming to Terms: African-Americans' Complex Ways of Coping with Life in a Nursing Home

“…The second type of studies focuses more narrowly on adaptation by examining the efficacy of techniques, therapeutic activities and other strategies used by staff or families to enhance the quality of life for residents, mostly by engaging them with others (John, 1996). Some of these techniques described in the literature include residents' encounters with school children which enhanced elders' selfesteem and improved the image of the facility in the community (Goldick-Davis, 1995); creative projects that increased residents' social participation (Arnott, 1985); voluntary but remunerated work therapy that residents actually preferred to structured leisure activities led by staff (Voeks & Drinka, 1990); milieu therapy of various sorts (Forsythe, 1988(Forsythe, /1989MacLennan, 1983); reminiscence and life review as intervention (Hendricks, 1995); involvement of families in the care of their institutionalized elders (Karr, 1985); creative use of housekeepers as "indigenous therapists" (Henderson, 1981); strategies for recognizing and honoring territoriality of residents as an important human characteristic to assure adjustment (Harkulich & Brugler, 1991); strategies for recognizing and facilitating adaptation as a process that takes time and occurs in stages (Brooke, 1989;Mikhail, 1992); use of the Buddy Program (Cohen, Hyland, & Devlin, 1999); strategies for preventing the infantilization of residents (Storlie, 1982); a compendium of these and other approaches (Cook, 1985); pet therapy (Savishinsky, 1991); and efforts to "Edenize" facilities by increasing biodiversity and changing the management style of nursing homes (Thomas, 1996;Weinstein, 1998).…”

The association of perceived conflict with sadness for long-term care residents with moderate and severe dementia

“…A number of intervention studies have tested the impact of various forms of ‘therapeutic’ interactions on mood or affect (Beck et al., 2002; Bédard, Landreville, Voyer, Verreault, & Vézina, 2011; Cohen, Hyland, & Devlin, 1999; Damianakis, Wagner, Bernstein, & Marziali, 2007; de Rooij et al., 2012; Finnema et al., 2005; Martichuski, Bell, & Bradshaw, 1996; McCallion, Toseland, & Freeman, 1999; McGilton, Sidani, Boscart, Guruge, & Brown, 2012; Tappen & Williams, 2009; Tondi, Ribani, Bottazzi, Viscomi, & Vulcano, 2007). However, none of these considered the long-term care resident's perception of conflict.…”

“…In addition, none of these studies assessed the range of relationships that long-term care residents experienced in day-to-day life. Instead, interventions were most often delivered by study research assistants (Cohen et al., 1999; de Rooij et al., 2012; Tappen & Williams, 2009; Tondi et al., 2007) or volunteers (Damianakis et al., 2007). Or, the studies targeted only those interactions between the resident and either care staff (Finnema et al., 2005; Martichuski et al., 1996; McGilton et al., 2012) or family (McCallion et al., 1999), ignoring the other relationships that are pertinent to long-term care residents with dementia—those with friends/family, staff, and co-residents (Bradshaw et al., 2012; O'Rourke, Duggleby, Fraser, et al., 2015).…”