Healthcare professionals' perceptions of P.I.E.C.E.S. education in supporting care delivery for older adults with responsive behaviours of dementia in acute care.

Introduction: In acute care settings persons with dementia often use responsive behaviours such as yelling and hitting as a meaningful mode of communication. Staff dementia care education programs such as P.I.E.C.E.S. may help to address these gaps in care. P.I.E.C.E.S. is a holistic clinical assessment framework that focuses on Physical, Intellectual, and Emotional health, Capabilities of an individual, and the living Environment of a person and the Social being.Aims: The aim of this interpretive descriptive study was to explore the perceptions of healthcare professionals of P.I.E.C.E.S. and recommendations to enhance its uptake.Methods: A total of 15 healthcare professionals from acute medical settings in a hospital in Ontario participated in face-to-face, semi-structured interviews. Experiential thematic and secondary data analyses were performed.Findings: P.I.E.C.E.S. had many positive perceived impacts such as promoting interdisciplinary collaboration. However, participants reported that it was challenging to sustain P.I.E.C.E.S. in practice which led to a tapering off of it approximately one year post-education. A barrier to applying P.I.E.C.E.S. was limited time.Conclusions: Findings indicate the need for educational reinforcements and sustainability strategies for dementia care programs in acute care settings. Organizations should implement regular interdisciplinary meetings to provide opportunities for staff to apply P.I.E.C.E.S.

Communication strategies to promote spiritual well-being among people with dementia.

Declining communication skills in dementia threaten a person's sense of self. Building on enduring capabilities, pastoral visitors can significantly enhance spiritual well-being through the use of individualized, person-centered strategies. This article outlines the primary spiritual needs of older adults with dementia and some general strategies to improve communication based on enduring abilities. Detailed examples illustrate how these personhood-centered strategies can meet spiritual needs by connecting with individuals with dementia through life stories and through helping them to participate in religious life.

Improving geriatric mental health nursing care: making a case for going beyond psychotropic medications.

Providing high-quality mental health nursing care should be an important and continuous preoccupation in the gerontological nursing field. As the proportion of elderly people in our society is growing, the emphasis on high-quality care will receive increasing attention from administrators, politicians, organized groups, researchers and clinical nurses. Recent findings illustrate unequivocally the important contribution of nurses to achieving the goal of high-quality geriatric care. However, the quality of care for the elderly with psychological difficulties has not been addressed. The objective of this article is to illustrate that while nurses can accomplish much to improve the well-being and mental health of the elderly, their skills are often underutilized. Psychotropic drugs are often the first-line interventions used by health-care professionals to treat mental health concerns of elderly persons. Alternative therapies that could be implemented and evaluated, such as psychological counselling, supportive counselling, education and life review, are infrequently used. Nevertheless, current scientific data suggest that it would be very advantageous if nurses were to play a dominant role in the care of elderly people who are depressed or experiencing sleep pattern disturbances. The same can be said about elderly chronic users of benzodiazepines, as well as those with cognitive impairment. Evidence for the use of psychotropic medications as a viable treatment option for the elderly both in the community and in the long-term care setting who are experiencing mental health challenges is examined. Alternative non-pharmacological approaches that nurses can use to augment care are also briefly discussed.