Dementia Early Recognition and Response in Primary Care (EVIDEM-ED)

University College London (UCL)

Status and phase: Unknown; Phase 3; Phase 2

Conditions: Dementia

Treatments: Other: Educational Dementia training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00866099

FIS No: 49287

Award Code: GZFP

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to develop and test an educational intervention for dementia in primary care, combining timely diagnosis, psychosocial support around the period of diagnosis and management concordant with guidelines.

Full description

Dementia presents many challenges for primary care. Early diagnosis is important as this allows those with dementia and their family care networks to engage with support services and plan for the future. These actions can relieve the significant psychological distress that people with dementia and close supporters may experience , and provide knowledge about the availability of medical and psycho-social support that can improved functioning and morale

The main efforts to improve the identification and diagnosis of dementia should logically be targeted at primary care as this is the first point of contact for most individuals and their carers when faced with experiences of 'ill health'. There is, however, evidence that dementia remains under-detected and sub-optimally managed in general practice . An educational intervention that could enhance clinical practice, improving the skills of practitioners in the recognition of and response to dementia syndromes, could therefore be beneficial to people with dementia and their families, and potentially to health and social services.

Enrollment: 125 estimated patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients with memory or other cognitive impairments suggestive of dementia syndrome
• those with a formal diagnosis of dementia, of any type.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients and carers who are already involved in concurrent research
• If the key professional feels that an approach to the person with dementia or their carer would be inappropriate, for example the dementia is very severe, or that an approach may increase distress
• and any other important reason that the key professional may have for why the person with dementia or their carer should not be contacted.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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125 participants in 2 patient groups

"Normal Care"

No Intervention group

Description:

Primary care practices randomly allocated will be given a summary of the NICE/SCIE dementia guidelines (2006) and offered workshop training and software at the end of the study.

Training

Experimental group

Description:

Practices randomly allocated to the intervention arm will be asked to participate in tailored learning activities on dementia, over a three-month period and will be given an electronic training manual (based on Microsoft packages) which they can run in the background during and after consultations with people with known or suspected dementia syndrome and face-to- face individualised workshop sessions.

Treatment:

Other: Educational Dementia training