Non-Pharmacological Interventions for Dementia Behaviours in Care Homes

Running head: LEARNING CONTRACT
LEARNING CONTRACT
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LEARNING CONTRACT
Introduction
People who suffer from dementia and living in the care homes often experience
distressing behavioural episodes in addition to psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD).
The symptoms of this condition is perceived through the occurrences of aggression, agitation,
along with signs of anxiety and sexual disinhibition accompanied by walking about and
questioning repeatedly (Koder, Hunt & Davison, 2014). These patients are often prescribed
with antipsychotic medications. This antipsychotic medication is often given to these patients
suffering from BPSD as the first line of treatment. However, most of these medications are
associated with some limited efficacy. Therefore, this had led to the development and
application of various non- pharmacological interventions (NPIs) which in turn includes
certain therapies like aromatherapy, multisensory stimulation, massage accompanied by
animal therapy and music therapy. The National Institute for Health Care and Excellence
(NICE) have suggested such therapies (Brechin, 2013). This study aims to highlight the use
of NPIs in order to work with individuals who are experiencing BPSD on a day-to-day basis
especially in the care homes setting. Additionally the paper illustrates the influence of care
practises on the organizational factors that manages the care home environment.
Methodology and design
The study will implement an in-depth ethnographic case study that will be conducted
in total four care homes. This ethnographic case study will include conduction of interviews
with the respondents who will be 40 of the care home staffs. Additionally 384 hours of
participant observations will be considered for the conduction of the ethnographic case study.
There will be a number of 37 interviews approximately with the care home staffs along with
the administration mapping of the psychotropic medications which were prescribed for some
of the residents of the care home. The results will be obtained using the previous postal

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LEARNING CONTRACT
survey conducted with the managers of the care homes. They were able to select the homes
that were suitable to target the purposive sampling used for the case studies. For this study
the responses who were eligible for responses who will be sorted as well as analysed. The
homes will be selected as the potential sites for response that will be perceived to be more
caring for the people experiencing BPSD. Priority will be given to the homes that provide
guide to contact for participation. An increase in the likelihood of gaining relevant findings
was the reason for guidance (Backhouse et al., 2016).
Recruitment will be conducted through the provision of a cover letter along with a
follow up phone call prior to the arranging of the interview. A total of 10 managers of the
care homes will be contacted from a about 80 eligible care homes. Out of these the total
number who will agree to the meeting will be considered at different times over a 5- to 6-
week period and several number of interviews will be conducted with them. Data will not be
written down or will not include the residents or the staff non-participants. A verbal
information about the conducted of the study will be provided to the participants. There will
be a requirement of consent from all of these participants to take part in the study.
In order to conduct data analysis, the data obtained will be typed and will be
anonymised and stored securely. For extensive qualitative data set analysis, the framework
approach will be used. This type of transparent approach will have five phases involving
familiarisation that involves the immersion in the data in order to recognise the key themes.
The other phases are identified a thematic framework that involves assembling of the ideas
from the identified research questions along with the stage of familiarisation made into a
framework and finally indexing that will involve the thematic framework.