Autonomy, independence, and participation of nursing home habitants addressed by assistive technology: a scoping review.

Context: Assistive technologies have been identified by researchers and public policies of the Western world to be promising tools to face the challenge of maintaining quality of life of older people, and especially for nursing home habitants. Independence, autonomy, and participation are major determinants of quality of life of nursing homes habitants. Maintaining quality of life is nowadays a priority for public health policies and institutions of the where the population is growing older every year.

[Supporting psychobehavioral disorders at home and in institutions: a systemic approach].

Caring for people with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders is a complex process, that of a chronic illness. Psychological and behavioral symptoms associated to dementia can appear in all neuro-degenerative diseases to varying degrees, and depend on numerous factors that need to be understood in order to take appropriate action. We propose a systemic approach to psychological and behavioral symptoms, with a view to preventing their onset or reducing their severity.

Identification of unknown impurities J, RRT 2.2, 2.4, 2.6 and 3.4 in tetralysal® capsules.

Tetralysal® is a Galderma oral drug product (DP) marketed for the treatment of acne. Tetralysal® is sold in capsules containing either 150 mg or 300 mg of the drug substance. In the British Pharmacopoeia monograph for Lymecycline Capsules, the impurities already specified in the drug substance (A-G), visible in the European Pharmacopoeia 〈1654〉, are also specified together with an unidentified impurity at RRT 1.

Assessment of Food Intake Assisted by Photography in Older People Living in a Nursing Home: Maintenance over Time and Performance for Diagnosis of Malnutrition.

Malnutrition is related to poor outcomes. Food intake semi-quantitative assessment is helpful for malnutrition screening. Aims: to assess maintenance over one month of one-day semi-quantitative assessment of food intake (primary aim) and its performance in diagnosing malnutrition (secondary aim) in older people living in a nursing home.

Completion of the impurity profile of lymecycline: Formal identification of impurities E and F.

Lymecycline is the drug substance (DS) used in the Galderma drug product Tetralysal® capsules with 7 impurities currently described in the pharmacopeia labelled as A-G. In the current monograph, the structural identity of all impurities except E and F have been formally identified. In this manuscript, through both formal synthesis and preparative chromatography, we are the first group to confirm the structural identity, response factor of Impurity F and conditions which exacerbate the formation of both impurities.

Caregivers facing violence in long-term care setting: A cross analysis of incident reports and caregivers speech.

Background: Workplace violence is frequent, especially in long-term care, but often unreported.

Aims: The aim of this study is to identify workers experiences and coping strategies when they face physical aggression from residents and assess the value of incident reports for violence follow-up.

Methods: This mixed method study is based on incident reports collected over 3 years from two different long-term care geriatric facilities in France and thematic analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews of nurses and nursing assistants.

[Touchscreen tablets and people with dementia: interest, intentions and modalities of use].

Touchscreen tablets are increasingly used to support people with dementia. An inventory of the literature is proposed to specify the nature and intentions of use, the modalities of use and technical characteristics. Tablets are used for psychosocial interventions, life support, social living and leisure activities.

Treatment Indications in Clinical Practice and Applied Research on Psychosocial Interventions for People With Dementia.

A recent review of Cochrane meta-analyses on psychosocial interventions (PIs) concludes that clinical trials fail to confirm PIs effective for all types of dementia at every stage of the disease. This article describes how and to what extent it is necessary to identify treatment indications when researching PIs and employing them in clinical practice. Twelve Cochrane reviews on PIs for people with dementia, selected because of their systematic methodology, were searched to identify outcomes related to treatment indications (dosage, type of dementia, severity…).

Designing dementia-friendly gardens: A workshop for landscape architects: Innovative Practice.

Conception and construction of nursing homes focuses mostly on architectural design. The cost of gardens and amount of work they require is usually underestimated. This often results in inaccessible, unfit and poorly designed outdoor spaces.

Dance interventions for people with dementia: systematic review and practice recommendations.

Objectives: Dance interventions are pleasant social activities that are often offered to people with dementia in care settings. Effectiveness of dance as a psychosocial intervention for people with dementia has been studied to some extent, but several methodological issues remain unexplored. This review aimed to analyze studies on dance interventions for people with dementia and to identify practice recommendations for the development of these interventions.

Designing gardens for people with dementia: literature review and evidence-based design conceptual frame.

More and more dwelling facilities for people with dementia invest gardens as convivial, resourceful, and relational places. However, there is a demand for scientific evidence of such statements. The aims of this literature review are to enlighten scientific evidence concerning uses and therapeutic virtues of garden for people with dementia, and to contribute to an evidence-based design approach by identifying key dimension of garden design.

Assistive Technologies to Address Capabilities of People with Dementia: From Research to Practice.

Assistive technologies became pervasive and virtually present in all our life domains. They can be either an enabler or an obstacle leading to social exclusion. The Fondation Médéric Alzheimer gathered international experts of dementia care, with backgrounds in biomedical, human and social sciences, to analyze how assistive technologies can address the capabilities of people with dementia, on the basis of their needs.

Social health and dementia: a European consensus on the operationalization of the concept and directions for research and practice.

Background: Because the pattern of illnesses changes in an aging population and many people manage to live well with chronic diseases, a group of health care professionals recently proposed reformulating the static WHO definition of health towards a dynamic one based on the ability to physically, mentally and socially adapt and self-manage. This paper is the result of a collaborative action of the INTERDEM Social Health Taskforce to operationalize this new health concept for people with dementia, more specifically the social domain, and to formulate directions for research and practice to promote social health in dementia.

Method: Based on the expertise of the Social Health Taskforce members (N = 54) three groups were formed that worked on operationalizing the three social health dimensions described by Huber et al.

Use of Space and Human Rights: Planning Dementia Friendly Settings.

Environmental psychology has been a topic of great interest for many researchers in the field of aging and dementia. Thus, several orientations can be identified in the contemporary scientific literature concerning environmental design for people with dementia. In this article, we discuss recent research on environmental design models for people with dementia and propose an approach referring to the concept of use of space and human rights.

[Evaluation of psychosocial interventions for dementia: what to learn from the Cochrane Library?].

Psychosocial interventions for people with dementia have expanded in the last decades, and have been subject to an important number of evaluation attempts that often lead to scientifically flaw results. To study these failures we analysed the meta-analyses of the Cochrane Library. Among 18 meta-analyses, 11 were selected for the purpose of this study.

[Sensory functions and Alzheimer's disease: a multi-disciplinary approach].

Relations between sensory functions and Alzheimer's disease are still under-explored. To understand them better, the Fondation Médéric Alzheimer has brought together a multi-disciplinary expert group. Aristote's five senses must be enhanced by today's knowledge of proprioception, motor cognition and pain perception.

An overview of the use of music therapy in the context of Alzheimer's disease: a report of a French expert group.

Objectives: The aim of this overview is to present the developments of music therapy in France, its techniques, mechanisms and principal indications, mainly in the context of Alzheimer's disease.

Methods: An international review of the literature on music therapy applied to Alzheimer's disease was conducted using the principal scientific search engines. A work group of experts in music therapy and psychosocial techniques then considered the different points highlighted in the review of literature and discussed them.

Judging a book by its cover: uniforms and quality of life in special care units for people with dementia.

Objectives: In certain health care facilities, the staff commonly wear uniforms for dementia care. Wearing uniforms are often believed to improve the well-being of institutionalized people with dementia (PwD) by facilitating orientation and preserving hygiene. However, when studied more thoroughly, it appears that their use counters to person centeredness.

[Night support in special care units].

People with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders in nursing homes are also subject to sleep disorders. An in-depth study was therefore carried out to install a familiar setting that is based on the architectural environment and on specific support taking into account the size of healthcare teams.

The development of quality indicators to improve psychosocial care in dementia.

Background: The evidence for the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in dementia care is growing but the implementation of available evidence is not automatic. Our objective was to develop valid quality indicators (QIs) for psychosocial dementia care that facilitate the implementation process in various countries and settings.

Methods: A RAND-modified Delphi technique was used to develop a potential set of QIs.

Psychobiological processes: a gene-environment transactional hypothesis.

More and more concern over gene-environment interplay has been emerging recently. However studies covering this field of interest mainly focus on environmental toxicants. In this hypothesis I briefly review some outcomes of this area of interest related to social and physical environment, and try and elucidate a psychobiological pathway that could explain some of the mechanisms underlying this interplay.

Sharing meals with institutionalized people with dementia: a natural experiment.

Nutritional deficiency can have dramatic effects on the physical and psychological status of older adults. Although food supplements can enhance nutritional status, several authors suggest that more ecological means could also have beneficial impacts. Therefore, a natural experiment was conducted to study the impact of changed mealtime experiences for people with Alzheimer-type dementia.