Authors (including presenting author) :
Hon YL (1); Leung CO(1); Fung WY(1); Leung CN (1); Kwan YM (1)
Affiliation :
(1) Psychogeriatric Team, Kwai Chung Hospital, Hong Kong
Introduction :
"Make a Difference" - Skill Transfer Program is a Pioneer Program introduced into Hospital Authority in 2017. It is a new service models through service transformation to meet the health care needs so that the focus on the mission of helping people stay healthy. It empowers care givers to conduct evidence-based programs (EBP) to the target elderly with the principle of person-centre in the health care setting (District Elderly Care Centre - DECC, Residential Care Home of the Elderly-RCHE and Hospital setting). Based on ageing population has led to and increase in the prevalence of dementia and dramatic rising demand for medical and social care services. It target on the recent care giving to the elderly with dementia and increasing awareness of the needs of intervention for them in health care setting. Thus, the first EBP focused on the people with mild and moderate dementia and empowers carers to doing the right things right.
Objectives :
(1) To empower care givers to provide non-pharmacological evidence-based intervention for the elderly with cognitive impairment.
(2) To improve/ maintain the cognition and the quality of life for the elderly with cognitive impairment.
Methodology :
The current program is launched by the Psychogeriatric Team of Kwai Chung Hospital in 2017. It is a nurse-led program by transferring skills to care givers through EBP - Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST). " " The Right Time, the Right Person, the Right intervention, the Best Possible Outcome". CST is the only non-medical therapy endorsed by UK government guideline.A set of 14 sessions CST, aimed to actively stimulate and engage people with dementia with social benefit from a group.
Program designed to recruit and assess the target clients, provide skill transfer and empower the care givers to conduct the EBP sessions by providing on-site demonstration. Evaluation after each session will be performed.
The outcome of cognitive function, quality of life (QOL) in elderly clients were measured by the Hong Kong version of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (HK-MoCA), World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL - BREF) and the effectiveness of the programs was measured by the 6 point-scales of evaluation by care givers respectively.
Result & Outcome :
The program is started from September, 2017 to November, 2019. 146 older people from 2 DECC, 20 RCHEs and Psychogeriatric Day Care Centre (PGDCC) were enlisted in the program. The program was facilitating to 41 care givers of community settings and all nursing and supporting staff of PGDCC who are caring the elderly with dementia. The data was analyzed by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The differences between the pre- and post-test scores were compared using the paired sample T-test. The difference between the mean scores of HK-MoCA is t = -7.736 (p< .000); WHOQOL-BREF is t = -5.863 (p< .000) and the 6 point-scales of evaluation by care providers is t = -9.562 (p< .0014), were statistically significant. The result shows that CST is effeictive in improving cognition and associated with a significant benefit to well-being and quality of life. The care providers expressed that they have more confident, understanding, and enthusiastic to conduct CST after the program.
