People with dementia and the hospital environment: the view of patients and family carers

Abstract

Consumer opinions about hospital design/environment should be considered as an important source of data. Privacy and personal space for people with dementia and their family carers, a connection with the outside environment , and the needs of carers and visitors are all important considerations when designing healthcare environments.

Carer engagement in the hospital care of older people: an integrative literature review

“…Carer feedback relates to terms and practices including ‘explaining concerns to staff’, ‘telling staff how you are coping’, ‘views about care being provided’ and ‘cause for complaint or dissatisfaction’, all of which describe situations in which carers give feedback to staff about patient care or their experience of caring. Carer feedback may extend beyond carer engagement as it is defined here (see background) to include research about carer views and perspectives about caring beyond hospitals (Laitinen, ; Yeh & Bull, ), views about carer engagement in health care, satisfaction with coherence or quality of patient care (Mackenzie et al ., ; Andrén & Elmståhl, ) and experiences of transitions between care environments (Digby & Bloomer, ). Accordingly, many different methods of carer feedback exist and range to include carer engagement in clinical assessment of carer needs (Yeh & Bull, ), carer surveys (Andrén & Elmståhl, ; Laitinen, ), participation in research or evaluation studies (Rose et al ., ; Mackenzie et al ., ; Matson, ), development of tools or resources in palliative care (Hudson & Payne, ; Thomas & Moore, ) and contributing to professional education for dementia (Ellis, ).…”

The experience of people with dementia and nurses in hospital: an integrative review

“…, Edvardsson et al . , Digby & Bloomer ) which limits the transferability of the results. Ethical issues were not discussed in three of the articles (Atkin et al .…”

“…The main strengths identified in the included articles was that the impact of participation for patients with dementia was considered (Cowdell ,b, Digby et al . , Digby & Bloomer , Porock et al . ), the data was obtained from multiple sites (Clissett et al .…”

“…) also found that the interactions between patients and nurses were almost entirely focused on tasks, delivered with very little compassion. However for the patients, the quality of the care is the most important component of being in hospital, above the quality of their surroundings and other factors (Digby & Bloomer ).…”

Service utilisation and family support of people with dementia: a cohort study in England

“…Research to date has focused on outcomes of people with dementia during hospital admission (Morrison and Siu, ; Mecocci et al ., ; Sampson et al ., , ; Alzheimer's Society, ; Cowdell, ; Mukadem and Sampson, ; Digby and Bloomer, ), or after care home placement (Achterberg et al ., ; Scocco et al ., ), and few studies compare domiciliary with residential care. This paper reports the findings of a study that recruited people with dementia during a hospitalisation, and followed them, and their carers, for 12 months.…”