Rural general practitioner confidence in diagnosing and managing dementia: A two-stage, mixed methods study of dementia-specific training.

Introduction: Dementias a prevalent chronic healthcare condition affecting 46 million people worldwide and projected to grow in the coming years. Australians living in rural and regional areas often lack access to specialist dementia care, despite greater prevalence relative to metropolitan areas.

Objective: This study aimed to explore general practitioners (GP) understanding, confidence and attitudes towards dementia management in the rural context, and design and pilot a dementia-specific training program.

A new model for general practice-led, regional, community-based, memory clinics.

Background: Dementia is a major international health issue with high impact on the patient, relatives, and broader society. Routine screening for dementia is limited, despite known benefit of early detection and intervention on quality of care and patient outcomes. Screening is particularly limited in rural and regional areas, despite high burden and projected growth of dementia in these populations.

Effectiveness of a peer-mediated educational intervention in improving general practitioner diagnostic assessment and management of dementia: a cluster randomised controlled trial.

Objective: Test effectiveness of an educational intervention for general practitioners (GPs) on quality of life and depression outcomes for patients.

Design: Double-blind, cluster randomised controlled trial.

Setting: General practices in Australia between 2007 and 2010.

Acute Predictors of Social Integration Following Mild Stroke.

Background: Despite an acknowledged need to accurately predict stroke outcome, there is little empirical evidence regarding acute predictors of participation restriction post stroke. The current study examines prediction of social integration following mild stroke, using combinations of acute poststroke factors.

Patients And Methods: In a prospective, longitudinal study, a cohort of 60 stroke survivors was followed up at 6 months post stroke.

An evaluation of the additional benefit of population screening for dementia beyond a passive case-finding approach.

Objective: General practitioners (GPs) fail to identify more than 50% of dementia cases using the existing passive case-finding approach. Using data from the "Ageing in General Practice" study, we sought to establish the additional benefit of screening all patients over the age of 75 for dementia beyond those patients already identified by passive case-finding.

Method: Patients were classified as "case-finding" (n = 425) or "screening" (n = 1006) based on their answers to four subjective memory related questions or their GP's clinical judgement of their dementia status.