Using Voice-Activated Technologies to Enhance Well-Being of Older Adults in Long-Term Care Homes.

Background And Objectives: Information communication technologies (ICTs) can enhance older adults' health and well-being. Most research on the use of voice-activated ICTs by older adults has focused on the experiences of individuals living in the community, excluding those who live in long-term care homes. Given evidence of the potential benefits of such technologies to mitigate social isolation and loneliness, more research is needed about their impacts in long-term care home settings.

Conversation for change: engaging older adults as partners in research on gerotechnology.

There is increasing research and public policy investment in the development of technologies to support healthy aging and age-friendly services in Canada. Yet adoption and use of technologies by older adults is limited and rates of abandonment remain high. In response to this, there is growing interest within the field of gerotechnology in fostering greater participation of older adults in research and design.

"I don't see the whole picture of their health": a critical ethnography of constraints to interprofessional collaboration in end-of-life conversations in primary care.

Context: Interprofessional collaboration is recommended in caring for frail older adults in primary care, yet little is known about how interprofessional teams approach end-of-life (EOL) conversations with these patients.

Objective: To understand the factors shaping nurses' and allied health clinicians' involvement, or lack of involvement in EOL conversations in the primary care of frail older adults.

Methods/setting: A critical ethnography of a large interprofessional urban Family Health Team in Ontario, Canada.

Understanding the connection between hospital goals and patient and family engagement: A scoping review.

The person-centered care movement has influenced hospitals to make patient and family engagement (PE) an explicit commitment in their strategic plans. This is often reflected in mission, vision, and value (MVV) statements, which are organizational artifacts intended to influence the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of hospital teams and employees because of their saliency in organizational documents and communications. Previous research has found that organizational goals for PE, like those articulated in MVV statements, can lead to effective and meaningful PE.

Rehabilitation professionals' perspectives and experiences with the use of technologies for violence prevention: a qualitative study.

Background: There is growing public policy and research interest in the development and use of various technologies for managing violence in healthcare settings to protect the health and well-being of patients and workers. However, little research exists on the impact of technologies on violence prevention, and in particular in the context of rehabilitation settings. Our study addresses this gap by exploring the perceptions and experiences of rehabilitation professionals regarding how technologies are used (or not) for violence prevention, and their perceptions regarding their efficacy and impact.

Exploring the merits of research performance measures that comply with the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment and strategies to overcome barriers of adoption: qualitative interviews with administrators and researchers.

Background: In prior research, we identified and prioritized ten measures to assess research performance that comply with the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, a principle adopted worldwide that discourages metrics-based assessment. Given the shift away from assessment based on Journal Impact Factor, we explored potential barriers to implementing and adopting the prioritized measures.

Methods: We identified administrators and researchers across six research institutes, conducted telephone interviews with consenting participants, and used qualitative description and inductive content analysis to derive themes.

DORA-compliant measures of research quality and impact to assess the performance of researchers in biomedical institutions: Review of published research, international best practice and Delphi survey.

Objective: The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) advocates for assessing biomedical research quality and impact, yet academic organizations continue to employ traditional measures such as Journal Impact Factor. We aimed to identify and prioritize measures for assessing research quality and impact.

Methods: We conducted a review of published and grey literature to identify measures of research quality and impact, which we included in an online survey.

Projecting a Critique of Stigma Associated With Dementia on Screen: The Impact of a Canadian Film on the Importance of Relational Caring in the Community.

Background And Objectives: Relational caring has the capacity to reduce stigma associated with dementia by shifting the focus from dysfunction and behavior management, to attending to the interdependencies and reciprocities that underpin caring relationships, and making explicit the centrality of relationships to quality care, growth, and quality of life. Education, particularly arts-based approaches, has been identified as a key strategy to decrease stigma. Yet rarely are the arts utilized in educational initiatives, and particularly so in community care settings.

Just and inclusive end-of-life decision-making for long-term care home residents with dementia: a qualitative study protocol.

Background: Many people living with dementia eventually require care services and spend the remainder of their lives in long-term care (LTC) homes. Yet, many residents with dementia do not receive coordinated, quality palliative care. The stigma associated with dementia leads to an assumption that people living in the advanced stages of dementia are unable to express their end-of-life needs.

Prevalence, causes, and consequences of moral distress in healthcare providers caring for people living with dementia in long-term care during a pandemic.

Healthcare providers caring for people living with dementia may experience moral distress when faced with ethically challenging situations, such as the inability to provide care that is consistent with their values. The COVID-19 pandemic produced conditions in long-term care homes (hereafter referred to as 'care homes') that could potentially contribute to moral distress. We conducted an online survey to examine changes in moral distress during the pandemic, its contributing factors and correlates, and its impact on the well-being of care home staff.

Dance Wherever You Are: The Evolution of Multimodal Delivery for Social Inclusion of Rural Older Adults.

Background And Objectives: Older adult social inclusion involves meaningful participation that is increasingly mediated by information communication technology and in rural areas requires an understanding of older adults' experiences in the context of the digital divide. This article examines how the multimodal streaming (live, prerecorded, blended in-person) of the Sharing Dance Older Adults program developed by Canada's National Ballet School and Baycrest influenced social inclusion processes and outcomes in rural settings.

Research Design And Methods: Data were collected from on-site observations of dance sessions, research team reflections, focus groups, and interviews with older adult participants and their carers in pilot studies in the Peterborough region of Ontario and the Westman region of Manitoba, Canada (2017-2019).

Barriers and facilitators to person-centred infection prevention and control: results of a survey about the Dementia Isolation Toolkit.

Background: People working in long-term care homes (LTCH) face difficult decisions balancing the risk of infection spread with the hardship imposed on residents by infection control and prevention (ICP) measures. The Dementia Isolation Toolkit (DIT) was developed to address the gap in ethical guidance on how to safely and effectively isolate people living with dementia while supporting their personhood. In this observational study, we report the results of a survey of LTCH staff on barriers and facilitators regarding isolating residents, and the impact of the DIT on staff moral distress.

Dementia and sexuality in long-term care: Incompatible bedfellows?

Despite the recognized benefits of sexual expression and its importance in the lives of people living with dementia, research demonstrates that there are multiple barriers to its positive expression (e.g., expression that is pleasurable and free of coercion, discrimination, and violence) in RLTC homes.

Conceptualization of frailty in rehabilitation interventions with adults: a scoping review.

We aimed to synthesize the literature that considered frailty in the evaluation of rehabilitation interventions for adults (aged ≥18) by answering: (1) how is frailty defined in rehabilitation intervention research?; (2) how is frailty operationalized in rehabilitation intervention research?; (3) what are the characteristics of rehabilitation interventions for frail adults and what frailty related outcomes are assessed? A scoping review was conducted. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis. 53 articles met the inclusion criteria.

Critical Characteristics of Housing and Housing Supports for Individuals with Concurrent Traumatic Brain Injury and Mental Health and/or Substance Use Challenges: A Qualitative Study.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and mental health and/or substance use challenges (MHSU) are commonly co-occurring and prevalent in individuals experiencing homelessness; however, evidence suggests that systems of care are siloed and organized around clinical diagnoses. Research is needed to understand how housing and housing supports are provided to this complex and understudied group in the context of siloed service systems. This study aimed to describe critical characteristics of housing and housing supports for individuals with concurrent TBI and MHSU from the perspectives of service users with TBI and MHSU and housing service providers.

A rapid scoping review of end-of-life conversations with frail older adults in Canada.

Objective: To explore what is known about end-of-life (EOL) conversations with frail older adults across all settings including primary care in Canada, and to understand the barriers to, and recommendations for, EOL conversations.

Data Sources: Comprehensive searches were conducted in CINAHL (EBSCO), Embase (Ovid), MEDLINE (Ovid), AgeLine (EBSCO), Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest), and Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ProQuest). Searches used text words and subject headings (eg, MeSH, Emtree) related to 3 concepts: frailty, Canada, and EOL conversations.

Biomedicalization of end-of-life conversations with medically frail older adults - Malleable and senescent bodies.

The common practice of delaying and/or avoiding end-of-life conversations with medically frail older adults is an important clinical issue. Most research investigating this practice focuses on clinician training and developing conversation skills. Little is known about the socio-political factors shaping the phenomenon of end-of-life conversations between clinicians and medically frail older patients.

Exploring illness identity among children and youth living with cancer: A narrative review.

Background: Children and youth with cancer may find it challenging to integrate illness into their pre-existing identity-a phenomenon known as illness identity. In this critical narrative review, we explored illness identity among children and youth with cancer.

Methods: Three academic databases were searched.

Free to be: Experiences of arts-based relational caring in a community living and thriving with dementia.

Aim: To present findings about experiences of relational caring at an arts-based academy for persons living with dementia.

Background: There is a compelling call and need for connection and relationships in communities living with dementia. This study shares what is possible when a creative arts-based academy for persons living with dementia grounded in relational inquiry and caring focuses on relationships through the medium of the arts.

Moving Toward the Promise of Participatory Engagement of Older Adults in Gerotechnology.

Limited uptake and use of developed technologies by older adults have prompted interest in participatory design and related approaches in the gerotechnology field. Despite this, recent systematic reviews suggest that researchers continue to passively engage older adults in research projects, often only providing advice or feedback in the early or later phases of research. A key barrier to more meaningful and active engagement of older adults is a lack of understanding as to how participatory design differs from other participatory approaches, and in particular, participatory action research.

Separate and Unequal: A Time to Reimagine Dementia.

The rapid emergence of COVID-19 has had far-reaching effects across all sectors of health and social care, but none more so than for residential long-term care homes. Mortality rates of older people with dementia in residential long-term care homes have been exponentially higher than the general public. Morbidity rates are also higher in these homes with the effects of government-imposed COVID-19 public health directives (e.

Fit for Dialysis: a prospective 2-site parallel intervention trial of a filmed research-based drama to increase exercise amongst older hemodialysis patients.

Purpose: The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of a filmed research-based drama-Fit for Dialysis-and an exercise program on patients' physical activity and fitness outcomes.

Methods: Nineteen (10 at the intervention site, 9 at the control site) older patients with a medical diagnosis of hemodialysis-dependent end-stage renal disease were recruited from two acute care hospitals in urban central Canada where they were receiving out-patient hemodialysis care. Participants at the intervention site viewed Fit for Dialysis prior to participating in a 16-week exercise program.

Sleep before and after work-related concussion: Sex differences in effects and functional outcomes.

Background: Recent studies have started disentangling components of disturbed sleep as part of the post-concussive syndrome, but little is known about the workers with an injury' perspectives on post-injury sleep changes or what causes these changes.

Objectives: To determine the effects of work-related concussion/mild traumatic brain injury (wr-mTBI) on perceptions of refreshing sleep in workers with an injury and to identify the relevant factors responsible for sleep changes.

Methods: We studied post-concussive changes in sleep in 66 adults (50% male workers, 42% aged 30-50 years, median post-injury days: 155) who had sustained wr-mTBI and experienced functional limitations long after the injury.

Dancing With Dementia: Exploring the Embodied Dimensions of Creativity and Social Engagement.

Background And Objectives: Dance is increasingly being implemented in residential long-term care to improve health and function. However, little research has explored the potential of dance to enhance social inclusion by supporting embodied self-expression, creativity, and social engagement of persons living with dementia and their families.

Research Design And Methods: This was a qualitative sequential multiphase study of Sharing Dance Seniors, a dance program that includes a suite of remotely streamed dance sessions that are delivered weekly to participants in long-term care and community settings.

Towards Responsible Implementation of Monitoring Technologies in Institutional Care.

Increasing awareness of errors and harms in institutional care settings, combined with rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, have resulted in a widespread push for implementing monitoring technologies in institutional settings. There has been limited critical reflection in gerontology regarding the ethical, social, and policy implications of using these technologies. We critically review current scholarship regarding use of monitoring technology in institutional care, and identify key gaps in knowledge and important avenues for future research and development.