Promoting Community-based Health and Social Care for People with Dementia and their Family Caregivers
Principal Investigator:
Dr. Jennifer Baumbusch, PhD, RN
Co-Investigators:
Dr. Maureen Ashe, PhD
Dr. Heather Cooke , PhD
Dr. Alison Phinney, PhD, RN
Jo-ann Tait, MScN, BHSc, RPN
Funding:
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Purpose:
Extended-hours adult day centres (EH-ADCs) can potentially play a pivotal role in providing timely and responsive health and social care programming for people with dementia (PWD) and their family caregivers. In general, typical ADCs provide a safe and supervised environment for social activities, meals and some health services for community-dwelling clients who require some assistance or cannot be at home by themselves. This programming is offered Monday to Friday, during regular business hours (e.g. 9am -3pm). EH-ADCs build upon this model by shifting from group-based programing to more individualized, person-centered care and offering services outside of typical business hours, usually in the evening and on the weekend. The EH-ADC as a best practice for PWD who wish to remain living at home with their family caregivers for as long as possible. Yet, currently there is insufficient evidence for the wide-spread adoption of EH-ADCs in community-based health and social programming for PWD – a gap that we will begin to address with this project
The purpose of this project is to improve community-based health and social care programming for PWD and their family caregivers by generating an in-depth, contextualized understanding about EH-ADCs that can be used inform policy and programming.
There are 3 main objectives:
- generate new knowledge about the role of EH-ADCs in supporting PWD and their family caregivers in the community;
- examine how policy/organizational/contextual factors shape (i.e. facilitate or deter) EH-ADCs, including i) implementation and ii) participation in programming; and
- optimize the delivery of EH-ADCs as a responsive community-based health and social care program for PWD and their family caregivers by translating findings into policy and practice.