Quality of Life in Dementia: Do Professional Caregivers Focus on the Significant Domains?

Abstract

The domains of quality of life that are considered important by people with dementia and professional caregivers are not in agreement. This explorative study addresses the question, "To what degree do professional caregivers, in their daily working routine, focus on the quality-of-life domains that people with dementia consider essential?" Study participants were nursing assistants who work in 24-hour nursing home care and professionals who offer daytime activities. Three hundred and seventy-four caregivers working on 29 units and 3 day care facilities of 13 nursing homes and in 12 meeting centers filled out a questionnaire. The caregivers reported to focus at least to some degree on most domains considered important by people with dementia. However, relatively little attention was paid to "financial situation" and "being useful/giving meaning to life." Professionals who offer daytime activities focused more than 24-hour care staff on "attachment," "enjoyment of activities," "sense of aesthetics," and "being useful/giving meaning to life."

Activity involvement and quality of life of people at different stages of dementia in long term care facilities

“…In theories specifically directed at people with dementia, occupation is assumed to be important to feel useful, maintain self-esteem, for feelings of belonging, sense of aesthetics and maintenance of abilities (Brod, Stewart, Sands & Walton, 1999;Lawton, 1994). Several study results from in-depth interviews with people with dementia, residing in the community as well as in long-term care facilities, confirm these theoretical assumptions (Cahill & Diaz-Ponce, 2011;Clare, Rowlands, Bruce, Surr, & Downs, 2008;Gerritsen et al, 2007;Orrell et al, 2008;Phinney, Chaudhury & O'connor, 2007).…”

Ethical implications of the perception and portrayal of dementia

“…In part, this was linked to having a sense of being useful. Interestingly, Dröes et al (2006) point out that being of use was not mentioned by carers as being relevant to quality of life and Gerritsen et al (Gerritsen et al, 2007) found that professional carers only focused on it to a minor degree. The importance of feeling useful and being able to give something back runs counter to the common perception of people with dementia as being unable or unwilling to reciprocate, which was one of the frames identified by van .…”

‘I hate having nobody here. I’d like to know where they all are’: Can qualitative research detect differences in quality of life among nursing home residents with different levels of cognitive impairment?

“…Although dementia and QoL has received much research attention over recent years (Dro¨es et al, 2006;Ettema et al, 2005;Gerritsen et al, 2007;Selai & Trimble, 1999), there is still no universal definition of QoL; nor has a gold standard been developed for its measurement. One dilemma long debated is whose views should be sought; however, in recent years, growing international evidence has accumulated demonstrating that most people with dementia (PwD) can respond well to questions asked about their QoL (Brod, Stewart, Snads, & Walton, 1999;Cahill et al, 2004;Logsdon, Gibbson, MsCurry, & Teri, 2002;Mozley et al, 1999;Ready, Ott, Grace, & Fernandez, 2002;Trigg, Jones, & Skevington, 2007) and that proxy informants, i.e.…”