Publications by authors named "Alys Wyn Griffiths"

Vaccinating care home staff is essential to protect vulnerable residents by reducing infection risks and creating a safer care environment. However, vaccine hesitancy amongst staff remains a challenge, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic raised concerns about side effects and vaccination mandates. This study examines how the pandemic influenced flu vaccine hesitancy amongst UK care home staff.

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Background: Human rights, recovery, and value-based approaches are integral to strategic changes and development in mental health care. Successfully integrating such person-centred values in mental health services requires a paradigm shift from traditional biomedical models of care to a more human rights-based approach. An important aspect of this is shared decision making (SDM) between mental health staff and service users.

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Background: Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) can be used to assess the impact of health conditions upon an individual's health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Whilst PROMs have been used to quantify the HRQoL impact of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), existing instruments may not fully capture what matters to people living with ALS (plwALS) or be appropriate to be used directly to inform the cost-effectiveness of new treatments. This highlights a need for a new condition-specific PROM that can both capture what's important to plwALS and be used in economic evaluation.

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Objectives: Up to 60% of people with dementia living in care homes will 'wander' at some point, which has typically been seen by staff as a problematic behaviour. A range of non-pharmacological interventions have been tested to either support or prevent wandering. However, even recent innovative practice continues to maintain a focus on reducing or preventing wandering.

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As many countries experience population aging, patients with cancer are becoming older and have more preexisting comorbidities, which include prevalent, age-related, chronic conditions such as dementia. People living with dementia (PLWD) are vulnerable to health disparities, and dementia has high potential to complicate and adversely affect care and outcomes across the cancer trajectory. This report offers an overview of dementia and its prevalence among patients with cancer and a summary of the research literature examining cancer care for PLWD.

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Background: Managing multiple conditions is difficult for patients and their families, increasing complexity in care. Two of the most common long-term conditions, cancer and dementia, both disproportionately affect older adults. However, little is known about the needs and experiences of those living with both conditions, which could inform practice in the area.

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Background: Many people residing in nursing or residential care homes (also called long-term care facilities) live with physical or cognitive difficulties. Staff working in these environments often help residents (particularly those with more advanced dementia) with their personal care needs, including maintaining mouth care and health. Poor oral health is associated with many difficulties, including increased risk of respiratory problems, pain and discomfort.

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Background: Dementia Care Mapping™ (DCM) is a widely used, staff-led, psychosocial intervention to support the implementation of person-centred care. Efficacy evaluations in care homes have produced mixed outcomes, with implementation problems identified. Understanding the experiences of staff trained to lead DCM implementation is crucial to understanding implementation challenges, yet this has rarely been formally explored.

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Counselling and other psychotherapeutic interventions can be offered to people with dementia and their caregivers, to treat specific conditions or symptoms (e.g. affective disorders such as depression).

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Objective: Increasing numbers of people are expected to live with comorbid cancer and dementia. Cancer treatment decision-making for these individuals is complex, particularly for those lacking capacity, requiring support across the cancer care pathway. There is little research to inform practice in this area.

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Objectives: As the number of people living with dementia increases, reducing stigma has become a policy priority. One way of decreasing stigma is through contact with the stigmatised group. However, the impact of this is difficult to establish due to a lack of validated measures suitable for adolescents.

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Background: One of the major challenges worldwide is the stigma associated with dementia. There is limited dementia awareness within Malaysian communities, including levels of confusion regarding the differences between dementia and the usual ageing progress, which can lead to delays in support seeking. The need for additional training and education for healthcare professionals has been highlighted.

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Objective: There has been an increasing interest in establishing dementia friendly communities leading to the development and delivery of various dementia awareness initiatives. These initiatives have generally been aimed at adults; however, to sustain dementia friendly communities, the involvement of young people is imperative. Very few dementia awareness initiatives exist for young people, and none have been independently evaluated to establish their impact.

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The concepts of "defeat" (representing failed social struggle) and "entrapment" (representing an inability to escape from a situation) have emerged from the animal literature, providing insight into the health consequences of low social rank. Evolutionary models suggest that these constructs co-occur and can lead to the development of mental disorders, although there is limited empirical evidence supporting these predictions. Participants (N=172) were recruited from economically deprived areas in North England.

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