Farm-based day care in Norway – a complementary service for people with dementia

Abstract

BackgroundDay care services provide meaningful activities and coping experiences in a safe environment for people with dementia, as well as improve quality of life. Such services vary in types and settings. Farm-based day care (FDC) services are described as services that have been adapted from the farm setting, using farm resources to promote health. There is limited knowledge on the service offered in both FDC and regular day care services for people with dementia. The present study aims to investigate FDC in Norway and describe the services and the participants’ care environment.Materials and methodsWe mapped the existing farms offering day care in Norway by the spring 2017 (N=33) and collected information through two cross-sectional surveys (N=32) answered by the service providers at the farms.ResultsThe farms included in this survey provided day care services to 227 people with dementia, located in most regions of Norway. The services varied in terms of group size and half of the services had young people with dementia (≤65 years) and people with dementia at an early stage as their primary target group. About half of the staff had health care education (47.5%), and there were staff with agricultural competence available in most FDCs. All farms reported that the participants spent time outdoors every day, and all services, except two, had animals. The providers highlighted the opportunity to choose activities that were individually tailored for each participant, as the diversity of resources in the farm made it possible to organize different activities.ConclusionFDC services have similarities in organization, daily structure, and number of health education personnel to other day care services, but differ in type of care environment with a wide range of activities and available resources like farm buildings, gardens, animals, and outdoor areas.

People with dementia attending farm‐based day care in Norway – Individual and farm characteristics associated with participants’ quality of life

“…FDC provides a wide range of farm activities that the participants can engage in using their remaining resources and competences, and this participation in adapted farm activity may influence to whom it is offered and who accept this type of day care. The majority of Norwegian FDCs include people with early‐onset dementia or dementia in early stage as their main target group (Ibsen et al, ). This is reflected in the population of the present study, where most of the participants had mild dementia according to the CDR‐SOB score.…”

“…Being physical active, spending time outdoors and being in social interactions with both other people and animals are the core components of the service offered at FDC (de Bruin et al, ; Ibsen et al, ). The present study underscores the benefit of spending time outdoors, as it was associated with a better quality of life and explained the variation in the quality of life reported by the participants at the FDC level.…”

“…The present study underscores the benefit of spending time outdoors, as it was associated with a better quality of life and explained the variation in the quality of life reported by the participants at the FDC level. The activities performed outdoors at Norwegian FDC’s consist of walking, plant‐ and animal‐related activities and other types of farm work (Ibsen et al, ). From this, one can conclude that the participants are involved in some physical activity.…”

“…working in the garden, plant and animal activity). The participants spent time outdoors daily (Ibsen, Eriksen, & Patil, 2018). Activities such as being involved with nature or with plants or animals have often been described as important for how people with dementia perceive their quality of life (Carver, Lorenzon, Veitch, Macleod, & Sugiyama, 2018;Orr, Wagstaffe, Briscoe, & Garside, 2016).…”

<p>Care Farming for People with Dementia; What Can Healthcare Leaders Learn from This Innovative Care Concept?</p>

“…Additionally, there is a small number of care farms providing evening or weekend services to people with dementia or respite services to family caregivers. [12][13][14] Although the concept of care farming is gradually being implemented in other countries as well (eg, Germany, Austria, UK, Japan, South Korea, USA), [15][16][17][18] the Netherlands and Norway are still front-runners in providing and researching this innovative dementia care approach (see Box 1 for some background information about the evolution of care farming in the Netherlands and Norway). Over the last couple of years, several research projects have been carried out in these countries addressing a wide range of issues related to dementia care provision at care farms and using a wide range of research methods.…”