Caroline Struthers

Caroline Struthers
Caroline is currently Education and Training Manager for the EQUATOR Network, an international organization dedicated to enhancing the quality and transparency of healthcare research. Her previous roles have included Training Coordinator for The Cochrane Collaboration, and manager of an NHS-funded public engagement project for the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group, The ALOIS Community Project (www.alois.cochrane.org). The engagement project involved developing eLearning materials to explain the principles of research and evidence synthesis with the aim of encouraging public understanding and involvement in health research.

Website

Follow me here –

Pointing the FINGER at a multi-component intervention to prevent cognitive decline and dementia

34 Responses »
Caroline Struthers
Posted by
shutterstock_222049165

Caroline Struthers critically appraises a recent RCT of diet, exercise, cognitive training and vascular risk monitoring to prevent cognitive decline and dementia in at-risk Finnish women.

[read the full story...]

Case management for dementia: The jury’s (still) out.

26 Responses »
Caroline Struthers
Posted by
shutterstock_153522140

Caroline Struthers comes to grips with a Cochrane Review on case management for people with dementia and finds relevant messages for both practitioners and researchers.

[read the full story...]

Cognitive impairment in dementia need not prevent shared decision making

68 Responses »
Caroline Struthers
Posted by
shutterstock_211074070

In her first blog for the Social Care Elf, Caroline Struthers looks at research on cognitive impairment and shared decision making for people with dementia and offers useful tips on understanding research reviews. She also shares some of her own personal experience of the research topic and reminds us about reliable evidence having real-life applications.

[read the full story...]

Medication in advanced dementia: how can we judge what is appropriate?

53 Responses »
Caroline Struthers
Posted by
shutterstock_219711667

Caroline Struthers appraises a recent US cross-sectional study of the use of medications of “questionable benefit” in nursing home residents with advanced dementia. She concludes that all medications are of questionable value if they have side effects which might have a negative impact on quality of life or are likely to cause harm.

[read the full story...]

Statins have no beneficial effect on cognition in dementia, but can cause serious side-effects

95 Responses »
Caroline Struthers
Posted by
shutterstock_158586293

This updated Cochrane review on statins for the treatment of dementia contains worrying adverse effects data, but Caroline Struthers has to do a significant amount of digging to root it all out.

[read the full story...]

Cochrane review finds no good quality evidence for common medicines used to treat sleep problems in Alzheimer’s Disease

55 Responses »
Caroline Struthers
Posted by
shutterstock_122429272

People with dementia caused by Alzheimer’s Disease (ADD) (which is estimated to be around three quarters of people with dementia) often suffer from sleep disturbances.  These symptoms cause distress to the person with dementia and to their carers, increase the likelihood of admission to a care home, and are also very difficult for care home [read the full story…]

Dealing with a diagnosis of dementia: putting a systematic review into context

58 Responses »
Caroline Struthers
Posted by
shutterstock_160164149

Last July I wrote a blog (Helping patients and carers deal with a diagnosis of dementia: one size doesn’t fit all) about a systematic review of qualitative evidence (Bunn, 2012) relating to patients and carers experiences of reaching and adapting to a diagnosis of dementia.  That blog was heavily influenced by personal experience of my [read the full story…]

Reality orientation and skills training may improve cognition in dementia, but don’t jump to conclusions

38 Responses »
Caroline Struthers
Posted by
shutterstock_117983200

Well this is an interesting one. The abstract of a recent review by Carrion et al concludes that cognitive psychosocial interventions such as reality orientation and skills training improve cognition (Carrion, 2013). Woohoo, I thought; fantastic!  And then I read the review… Methods The authors searched the usual bibliographic databases for randomised and non-randomised controlled trials, [read the full story…]

Pain causing challenging behaviour in people with dementia is overlooked and under-treated

73 Responses »
Caroline Struthers
Posted by
shutterstock_51214540

A new review by Pieper et al 2013 aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the research on treatments for both pain and challenging behaviour in people with dementia. It hinges around the fact that pain is commonly undertreated because it is not easy to recognise unless there is a diagnosed physical cause, and also because [read the full story…]