Measurement to improve care and outcomes for persons with Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia
October 3, 2022
IMPACT Stakeholder Engagement Team member, Sam Fazio, PhD, and executive committee member, Sheryl Zimmerman, PhD, co-authored an editorial article to suggest improving outcome measures that relate to the nine domains of the Alzheimer’s Association Dementia Care Practice Recommendations (DCPR) and embrace five key constructs. The authors outline the ways in which measurement needs to be improved, propose their five constructs and discuss potential future efforts.
Abstract
Translational research and clinical interventions in Alzheimer’s and dementia embrace basic science, clinical studies, and diversity, inclusion, and health equity. Measurement is critical in all areas, but is especially lacking in the psychosocial realm; in fact, both the 2017 and 2020 National Research Summits on Care, Services, and Supports for Persons with Dementia and their Caregivers stressed the need to develop person‐centered measures suitable for heterogenous populations to better assess care and outcomes. Although numerous measures have been recommended for psychosocial research, their limitations are numerous, including time demands for administration 5 and that most are based on a medical model, focus on deficits rather than strengths, were not developed with input from persons living with dementia, are not relevant as the disease progresses or in all care settings, rely on informant reports, are not oriented toward quality improvement, and do not exist for numerous domains.