Daughters of Jacob Nursing Home Company, Inc.

Improving Quality of Life: Addressing Dementia and Challenging Behaviors

The project objective was to develop an educational curriculum using a train the trainer model to provide nursing home staff education to address dementia and challenging behaviors in the resident population. A consortium of seventeen nursing homes was brought together in a proactive attempt to promote resident's physical and emotional comfort and to prevent incidents of abuse, neglect and mistreatment. A train the trainer model for nursing home staff taught them how to intervene and implement problem solving and appropriate behavior management strategies. The training curriculum was taught to at least two trainers selected from each facility from various disciplines (i.e. nursing, social work, psychology, in-service education).

The research objective sought to determine the impact of the intervention on residents' behavior assessing if there was a reduction of behavioral symptoms and a reduction in resistance. The outcome methodology for data collection utilized the MDS data collected quarterly. The MDS was identified as the most useful data source for estimating the scope of aggressive behaviors. The five types of behavioral symptoms tracked by the MDS included: Wandering, Verbally Abusive Behavioral Symptoms, Physically Abusive Behavioral Symptoms, Socially Inappropriate/Disruptive Behavioral Symptoms and Resists care.

Goal: Reduce behavioral symptoms and resistance to care.