An in-hospital respite program for Alzheimer's

Abstract

A wide-range of respite services have been developed to meet the needs of families who care for the chronically ill and frail elderly. Institutional respite is a particular service that provides inpatient care to patients and offers their families temporary relief from the strain of continuous caregiving. This paper describes a two-week in-hospital respite program specifically designed for patients with Alzheimer's disease. Patients are profiled on the use of respite, sociodemographic characteristics, functional levels, and their dispositional outcome following respite.

Impact of Special Care Unit for Patients with Advanced Alzheimer's Disease on Patients' Discomfort and Costs

“…Patients in this study, even those classified as having less severe DAT, were, in general, more severely affected than most demented patients residing in nursing homes 34 . Most study subjects were married, and their spouses and other family members had cared for them in the community for as long as was possible, assisted by close medical supervision, 36 community resources, support groups, 37 and respite programs 38,39 . Thus, by the time of admission for long‐term care, most patients were severely demented.…”

“…and respite programs. ": 39 Thus, by the time of admission for long-term care, most patients were severely demented. Fewer subjects in TLTC were married, and this may account for their earlier admission to long-term care.…”

Literature review: use of respite by carers of people with dementia

“…A mixture of experimental, survey and qualitative studies found usage to be low even when carers were informed of and provided with various respite services, often at subsidised or no financial cost (Adler , Cox , Larkin et al . , Montgomery , Australian Institute of Health and Welfare ). Strang and Haughey () proposed that accepting and obtaining respite services involved three steps for the carer:…”

“…Therefore, it is somewhat surprising that the actual usage of formal respite services by carers of persons with dementia has been repeatedly shown to be relatively low (Larkin et al . , Montgomery , Cox , Braithwaite , Choi & Liu , Zarit et al . , Robinson et al .…”