New Study Will Help Primary Care Nurses Better Care for Dementia Patients

A new pilot study of a training model to help primary care nurses better care for persons with dementia is being conducted with a $54 million grant from the U.S. National Institute on Aging, reports News-Medical . McLean Hospital's Brent P. Forester said the pilot will provide condition-specific training to nurses in the Mass General Brigham system who are part of care teams treating medically complicated individuals with dementia. "We are going to modify existing training modules so that we can train nurses to be dementia care providers who can help with assessment, management, and coordination of care while providing support for family care partners," he said. Forester added that he and his colleagues pledged to design a new model to better help persons with dementia and their families, as well as doctors and nurses, based on a model originally studied at the University of California, San Francisco. This model "reduced emergency room visits, healthcare costs, and improved quality of life for patients and caregivers because of improved efforts at diagnosis and treatment of dementia and support of care partners by the primary care team," Forester noted. Crucial to the study is training for primary care nurse managers on telephone-based collaborative dementia care. Forester said by using the Care Ecosystem model, remote care could reduce unnecessary emergency room visits and behavioral symptoms for dementia patients, as well as enhance quality of life. "Part of our training will help nurses be attuned to why coordination of care is especially important for people with dementia and how better coordination might reduce some of the complications," he declared.