Canadian Clinical Guidelines on Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults.

Background: Preventing and addressing social isolation and loneliness among older adults is important because of the known associations with negative health outcomes. The Canadian Coalition for Seniors' Mental Health (CCSMH) took on the task of creating clinical guidelines.

Method: A multidisciplinary working group was established.

"It's a Postcode Lottery": How Do People Affected by Dementia in Wales Experience Their Diagnosis and Post-Diagnostic Support, and How May These Be Improved?

National dementia strategies are government policies that guide the provision of appropriate support for people living with dementia. These strategies, developed through extensive stakeholder engagement, should be tailored to the cultural and demographic needs of a country. Using a mixed methods survey design, this study explored the aims of the Dementia Action Plan (2018-2022) for Wales (UK) around assessment, diagnosis, and post-diagnostic support, and assessed whether these are being realized.

'Talking lines': the stories of diagnosis and support as told by those with lived experience of rare forms of dementia.

Background: People living with, or caring for someone with, rare forms of dementia can encounter issues while obtaining a diagnosis and trying to access appropriate support. This can affect their wellbeing, quality of life, social relationships and employment status. This study makes use of an arts-based narrative approach to explore individual accounts of these experiences whilst also exploring how, in telling their stories, those affected by rare forms of dementia might invoke, and situate their stories in relation to, broader cultural narratives around dementia and illness.

Exploring experiential differences in everyday activities - A focused ethnographic study in the homes of people living with memory-led Alzheimer's disease and posterior cortical atrophy.

Background: Supporting ageing in place, quality of life and activity engagement are public health priorities for people living with dementia, but little is known about the needs and experiences of community-dwelling people with rarer forms of dementia with lesser known symptoms. Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a rare form of dementia usually caused by Alzheimer's disease but which is characterised by diminished visual processing (rather than a dominant memory problem), which poses challenges for maintaining independence and accessing appropriate support.

Methods: This study used a comparative qualitative design and focussed ethnographic methods to explore experiential differences in activity engagement for 10 people with the most common, memory-led presentation of Alzheimer's disease and 10 people with posterior cortical atrophy within their everyday home environments.

"I Want to Do Something" - Exploring What Makes Activities Meaningful for Community-Dwelling People Living With Dementia: A Focused Ethnographic Study.

Supporting ageing in place, quality of life, and activity engagement are public health priorities for people with dementia. The importance of maintaining opportunities for meaningful activities has been widely acknowledged for those with dementia in long-term care, but little is known about what makes activities meaningful for, and how they are experienced by, people with different types of dementia in their own homes. This study used focussed ethnographic methods to explore the motivations and meanings of everyday activity engagement within the homes of 10 people with memory-led Alzheimer's disease and 10 people with posterior cortical atrophy.

'Misdiagnosed and Misunderstood': Insights into Rarer Forms of Dementia through a Stepwise Approach to Co-Constructed Research Poetry.

This study investigated co-constructed research poetry as a way to understand the lived experiences of people affected by rarer dementia and as a means to use poetry to convey those experiences to healthcare professionals. Using mixed methods, 71 people living with rarer dementia and care-partners (stakeholders) contributed to co-constructing 27 poems with professional poets; stakeholders' verbatim words were analysed with descriptive qualitative analysis. Stakeholders were also surveyed and interviewed about their participation.

"Better Living with Non-memory-led Dementia": protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial of a web-based caregiver educational programme.

Background: Non-memory-led dementias such as posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) are low prevalent and often affect individuals under the age of 65. Tailored educational and support resources for caregivers of people living with these dementia phenotypes are scarce and unevenly distributed geographically. Web-based educational programmes are emerging as promising alternatives to improve caregiver self-efficacy and well-being.

Situating support for people living with rarer forms of dementia.

Background: Awareness of a multitude of diseases that can cause neurodegenerative decline and their unique symptom profiles in the dementia care and support sectors remains limited. Obtaining an accurate diagnosis and post-diagnostic care and support is a challenge for many people and their families. As part of a larger study examining multi-component forms of support for people living with rarer dementias, the aim of this present study was to examine how rare dementia was situated within the complex social groupings, their organization and embedded discursive constructions that broadly form dementia care and support delivery.

Development of an item pool for a patient reported outcome measure of resilience for people living with dementia.

Background And Objectives: Policies to support people living with dementia increasingly focus on strengths-based approaches, highlighting the importance of building resilience. This research responds to the lack of a suitable resilience measure for people with dementia. It develops a pool of items to inform a new measure of resilience for this population.

'I have never bounced back': resilience and living with dementia.

Objective: This work responds to the limited research about resilience when living with dementia and develops a conceptual model to inform service development and healthcare practices for this population.

Methods: An iterative process of theory building across four phases of activity (scoping review  = 9 studies), stakeholder engagement ( = 7), interviews ( = 11) generated a combined sample of 87 people living with dementia and their carers, including those affected by rare dementias to explore their lived experiences. An existing framework of resilience developed in other populations served as the starting point to analyse and synthesise the findings, inspiring a new conceptual model of resilience unique to the experience of living with dementia.

'The oxygen of shared experience': exploring social support processes within peer support groups for carers of people with non-memory-led and inherited dementias.

Objectives: To explore support processes and behaviours taking place during online peer support groups for family carers of people living with rare, non-memory-led and inherited dementias (PLWRD).

Methods: Twenty-five family carers of PLWRD participated in a series of ongoing online peer support groups on the theme of 'Independence and Identity'. Transcripts from 16 sessions were analysed using qualitative directed content analysis with a coding framework informed by Cutrona & Suhr's (2004) Social Support Behaviour Code (SSBC).

A systematic review and psychometric evaluation of resilience measurement scales for people living with dementia and their carers.

Psychometrically sound resilience outcome measures are essential to establish how health and care services or interventions can enhance the resilience of people living with dementia (PLWD) and their carers. This paper systematically reviews the literature to identify studies that administered a resilience measurement scale with PLWD and/or their carers and examines the psychometric properties of these measures. Electronic abstract databases and the internet were searched, and an international network contacted to identify peer-reviewed journal articles.

Peer support for people living with rare or young onset dementia: An integrative review.

Objectives: The aim of this integrative review was to identify and synthesize the literature on peer support interventions for people living with or caring for someone with a rare or young onset dementia.

Design: A literature search of articles was performed using the Nipissing University Primo search system, a central index that enables simultaneous searches across databases which included MEDLINE (PubMed), Web of Science, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Sociological Abstracts, Cochrane Library.

Results: The eleven papers that met the inclusion criteria spanned eighteen years and from five countries.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Loneliness and Social Isolation: A Multi-Country Study.

The COVID-19 global pandemic and subsequent public health social measures have challenged our social and economic life, with increasing concerns around potentially rising levels of social isolation and loneliness. This paper is based on cross-sectional online survey data (available in 10 languages, from 2 June to 16 November 2020) with 20,398 respondents from 101 different countries. It aims to help increase our understanding of the global risk factors that are associated with social isolation and loneliness, irrespective of culture or country, to support evidence-based policy, services and public health interventions.

Health and social care practitioners' understanding of the problems of people with dementia-related visual processing impairment.

It has been highlighted that health and social care staff need a greater awareness of the needs and problems of those people with young onset dementia in the UK. Symptoms of Alzheimer's disease are relatively well known (memory loss, disorientation, language difficulties and behavioural problems). However, there is less awareness of dementia-related visual processing impairments in Alzheimer's disease, Dementia with Lewy Bodies or rarer dementia syndromes such as posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), leading to delayed assessment, diagnosis and management.

'Because my brain isn't as active as it should be, my eyes don't always see': a qualitative exploration of the stress process for those living with posterior cortical atrophy.

Objectives: To explore the stress process for individuals living with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) and their families.

Design: A qualitative study using in-depth semi-structured dyadic and individual interviews with people living with a diagnosis of PCA and a family carer. Interview transcripts were thematically analysed.

Shared geriatric mental health care in a rural community.

Introduction: A pilot project in shared mental health care was initiated to explore opportunities to increase the capacity of the rural primary care system as a resource for older people with mental health needs. This was done within a framework for the delivery of best practices in geriatric mental health outreach.

Methods: Shared-care strategies combining education and clinical consultation between mentor psychiatrists and family physicians were implemented and then evaluated after one year to identify key factors in the success of approaches to shared mental health care for older people in a rural setting.

Defining best practices for specialty geriatric mental health outreach services: lessons for implementing mental health reform.

Objective: This paper reviews fundamental areas that inform best practices for outreach services as they relate to shared care, education, and program and systems development and illustrates a framework for defining best practices.

Method: We examined literature that addresses the needs and characteristics of older persons with mental illness, studies that investigate geriatric mental health outreach services, and relevant theoretical developments. In addition, we synthesized some of the health services field research that we conducted.

21st century rural nursing: Navajo Traditional and Western medicine.

Past experiences enhance the future. Health care providers gaining expertise in creative thinking, traditional medicine, spirituality, and cultural sensitivity is an essential requirement for 21st century health care. We must stay mindful that poverty, isolation, and rural living may create new forms of social exclusion because of lack of communication and rapidly changing technology.