Dementia in Residential Care: Education
Intervention Trial
The Dementia in Residential Care: Education Intervention Trial (DIRECT) aims to improve the quality of care for people with dementia living in residential facilities.
While quality of life is a subjective concept, we know that it measures one of the most important areas of a person's health. The study aims to test the idea that if education is delivered to those who care for people with dementia, this may have a positive impact on the happiness and satisfaction of residents.
In order to deliver an easy, practical and person centred education program the DIRECT team asked General Practitioners and Residential Aged Care Facility staff what they most wanted out of an education program.
They told us that time is a barrier and that person centred care should underpin the education. They recommended that education be delivered in a flexible, individualized, as well as practical, case based, small group format.
Respondents felt that they needed more education in the following areas:
- Behaviours of concern
- Communication
- Knowledge regarding dementia
- Aspects of person centred care
- System factors
- Multidisciplinary team
For your copy of the abridged DIRECT Qualitative Phase Final Report, please visit www.biomedcentral.com or download the full PDF [ 
PDF, 0.8MB ].
To date the study has achieved many important milestones. We would like to acknowledge the contribution of everyone that has been involved in the research study - without you we cannot continue this important research! Thank you for being a part of it!
