Creative Conversations': An exploratory study of an arts in health approach to embedding person-centred care and improving communication between care staff and people living with dementia
End of project summary
Main messages
Nearly two decades ago, Kitwood (1997) urged people to see the ‘PERSON with dementia’, rather than focussing on the disease and introduced the concepts of personhood and person-centred care in dementia care. Unfortunately, this is not always implemented into practice as basic training for care home staff has been found to concentrate on manual handling, fire safety and health and safety rather than understanding the needs of older people, including those with dementia (Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, 2014).
Therefore, training is needed to improve the way care staff communicate with residents with dementia which will also enable a focus on person-centred care. A research briefing on communication training for care home workers undertaken for the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) concludes that communication training can help staff improve knowledge and understanding of dementia care and that an improvement in the quality of interactions between staff and residents can lead to an improvement in the quality of life and well-being of the residents (Moriarty, Kam, Coomber, Rutter, & Turner, 2010). They also acknowledge that researchers should be aware of limited literacy skills within the dementia workforce and therefore support the use of structured observation as a means of evaluating the impact of the training.
Care homes face many conflicting pressures involved in delivering day-to-day care, often described as task focussed, and despite best intentions, there is often limited scope for staff and residents to engage in meaningful activities together. This can be an incredible source of tension for the carers, who feel under pressure to accomplish care tasks, but wish for time to build relationships with residents (Ward et al., 2008).
The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act aims to transform Social Services in Wales by providing a legal framework to improve the well-being of those who need care and support and carers who need support (Welsh Government, 2014). Against this background and in response to a commitment for care excellence, this project formed a partnership between Bangor University, Flintshire County Council Social Services and Dementia Positive to deliver and evaluate a brief staff development intervention, designed to enrich the quality of the interaction between care staff and residents through enhancing communication skills. Recognising the challenges around workforce training, this project sought a novel way of enhancing skills through the arts.
Studies suggest that arts interventions aimed at people living with dementia also benefited care staff. A review of the involvement of dementia care staff in creative arts programmes indicates that care staff developed deeper personal connections with residents, and had enhanced understanding of communicative strategies and the needs and abilities of residents’ (Broome, Dening, Schneider & Brooker, 2017).
This project therefore aimed to develop and test a ‘Creative Conversations’ staff development intervention which used an arts in health approach to improve the quality of interaction between carers and people living with dementia.