Marianne Smith, PhD, RN, FAAN, Associate Professor

Donor: Jo Hoyt Freeman Dementia Education and Outreach Fund

Project: Partnerships to Improve Care and Quality of Life for Persons with Dementia

Funding Year: 2016 - 2019

Project Description:

• Background:  The challenges of family and staff caregivers “negotiating” the best care for persons with dementia were documented in a clinical trial that led to the evidence-based practice, The Family Involvement in Care (FIC) for Persons with Dementia Evidence-Based Guideline©.  Although family and staff training are both part of the FIC intervention, the guideline lacks specific instruction needed to form care partnerships between staff providers and family members of persons with dementia.
• Objectives:  The purpose of this project is to develop provider-focused training program that is based on Family Involvement in Care, and that supports the family-focused training series developed earlier.
• Population:  Long-term care (LTC) providers including nursing homes, assisted living, memory care, and community-based dementia services such as home health and adult health services.
• Approach:  Easy-to-use, online training modules are based on Family Involvement in Care principles to enhance partnership-building between family and staff. Additional modules focus on helping providers “know the person” with dementia and provide person-centered care in the context of changing needs. Modules development used an iterative approach involving LTC staff evaluation and feedback focused on usefulness. A small pilot project measured staff and family perceptions of care when implementing the partnership approach with select family members and staff caregivers.
• Outcomes: Twelve on-line training modules with supportive materials were developed. Outcomes of the pilot study will be available in 2019.  The staff-focused training series complements the family focused FIC-based training that is available the Iowa Geriatric Education Center.

For more information, contact Dr. Smith.