Equipping staff with the skills to maximise recovery of people with dementia after an injurious fall

What is it about?

What did we do? We spoke to people with dementia and their family and friends about their views. We also spoke to members of staff who work with people with dementia who have fallen. We visited some current services so we could find out how they worked and wrote notes about it. We used these notes and recordings of our conversations to look for patterns, known as themes. What did we find? The main theme that we found was the idea that services need to be organised in ways that help with things people with dementia might find difficult – for example, if they have trouble making new memories, we should add helpful activities or exercises into their daily routines instead of trying to change them completely. However, we also found that staff did not always know about dementia or understand what difficulties people with dementia might have. They also sometimes had negative attitudes toward people with dementia. This meant that they were not always able to adapt the way they did things to best suit people with dementia. What does this mean? We need to make sure that all staff working with people with dementia have specialised training and support. This will help them make sure the care they give is personalised for each person with dementia. This should help people with dementia to make a better recovery after a fall.

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Why is it important?

We have evidence that people with dementia are more likely to fall. Their falls can be more serious and harder to recover from than other older people. We wanted to find out how to make a new service that can best help people with dementia who have had a fall.