As part of its excellent ‘Too Much Medicine’ series, the British Medical Journal last week published an important analysis of the current direction of travel in the field of dementia care. The article is hard to ignore, written as it is by highly authoritative academics from the UK and Australia, including Professor Carol Brayne, an [read the full story…]
The aim of this paper, written for commissioners, managers, and health decision-makers, was to look at how commissioning works for people with long-term conditions such as dementia. The authors carried out a multisite mixed methods case study research, involving three ‘commissioning communities’ and using interviews, documents, and meeting observations to reach their conclusions. A commissioning [read the full story…]
It is now well accepted across the health and social care communities that the incidence of dementia is rising as people continue to live longer. The projected prevalence of dementia over the next ten to twenty years is causing widespread concern at all levels of policy making and care provision. There is a very real [read the full story…]
Carers are integral to health care improvement. This report highlights evidence that shows “the economic value of the contribution they make is £119bn per year”. However, without support, carers can feel isolated, depressed, and may be living in poor financial circumstances, which can lead to poor health for the carer too. The problem health and [read the full story…]
Early diagnosis and intervention for people with dementia is increasingly considered a priority. But there are still considerable barriers to achieving this, and nervousness from practitioners on the possible negative effect of earlier diagnosis of a condition widely perceived as untreatable and life-changing. A recent systematic review by Bunn et al analysed the qualitative evidence [read the full story…]
Family and friends often play a very important role in supporting older people with long-term, severe mental health problems. It is estimated that 25% of the 6 million carers in the UK are supporting someone with a mental health problem (Carers Trust, 2007). Stress has been cited as having a major impact on the wellbeing [read the full story…]
People with learning disabilities have been found to have increased risk of developing mental health problems. The knowledge of mental health issues amongst support workers however is also known to be sometimes lacking. The authors of this study were interested in looking at what support workers knew about mental health of older people with learning [read the full story…]
Antipsychotics were discovered as an effective treatment for schizophrenia in the 1950s, but their use was expanded despite lack of supporting evidence, to treat other patient groups. This included treating aggression, agitation and other behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD). There is evidence that these distressing symptoms can often be prevented or managed without [read the full story…]
Two of the most widely available medicines for dementia in the UK are cholinesterase inhibitors and a N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists (NHS, 2013). Both drugs are popular because they have been found to lead to improvements in dementia symptoms (Raina 2008). However, some have raised concerns about the safety for patients. These concerns are partly [read the full story…]
The symptoms of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) include problems with cognitive functioning such as day-to-day memory. In some individuals it is the first sign of dementia, whereas in others it may be due to resolvable factors such as being the side-effect of medication (Alzheimer’s Society, 2012). At present it is unclear how many people with [read the full story…]
