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Qualitative Study of people with moderate to severe dementia and their family carers living in domestic environments
Led by Juanita Hoe
What is Stream 4?
For stream 4, we spoke to family carers who care at home for loved ones with dementia and who deal with agitation every day. Agitation is a common symptom of dementia and is one of the most disabling and distressing aspects of the illness. Over half of people living with dementia will experience agitation in the middle and later stages of the illness. Symptoms of agitation such as lack of cooperation with personal care, repetitive speech, restlessness, verbal abuse and disinhibition are often considered the most stressful aspect of caring for someone with dementia and they can lead to a breakdown in care within the home. There are currently no non-drug based interventions which have been shown to work for this problem in people's own homes.
As part of the MARQUE study we want to find out more about the experiences of people who care for a
friend or relative with dementia who is living at home and who experiences symptoms of
agitation such as restlessness, irritability, shouting or verbal abuse.
MARQUE researchers conducted qualitative, in-depth interviews with family carers at home in order to understand more about how caring for a friend or relative with agitation impacts on their relationship, what helps in supporting the person with dementia and what makes things worse. This will help us to use the available evidence to design and test an intervention.
How's it going?
These findings have been published - see MARQUE publications
