Poster Presentation
Wednesday, 19 July 2006
9:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Wednesday, 19 July 2006
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM
This presentation is part of : Poster Presentations I
Caring for Patient with Dementia in Norway: Learning from Environmental Observations and Nurses Interviews
Cristina L. Joseph1, Gene Elizabeth Harkless, DNSc, ARNP1, and Anne Vinsnes, DrPH2. (1) Department of Nursing, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA, (2) Sør-Trøndelag University College, Trondheim, Norway
Learning Objective #1: Describe perceptions of nursing staff,organizational structure,and the environment of long term care centers for patients with dementia in Norway.
Learning Objective #2: Compare and contrast the Norwegian and American care structures and processes for individuals with dementia.
Dementia, an impairment of a person’s cognitive functioning, is a serious condition affecting 15 million elders worldwide. Usually at the stage in which they are placed in a nursing home, their communication ability is impaired, they have feeding and toileting difficulties and are, overall, very dependent on other for assistance with the activities of daily living. Therefore, the approaches used and the attitudes held by the direct care staff are of the utmost importance in creating a caring environment. A recent US ethnographic study which examined US nursing homes found that in understaffed facilities patients with dementia were often the first to be neglected. Families reported that staffing was inadequate to provide even basic care such as oral hygiene, bathing and changing (Kayser-Jones, 2002). It may be that Norway can offer new perspectives on how to meet these staffing challenges and improve the quality of life for those with dementia in nursing homes. Norway is experiencing its own demographic shift and nursing home care challenges. Norway has a  growing number of elderly in nursing homes with about 17% of those over 80 years of age residing in these facilities. As well, their overall length of stay is increasing. This study reports the findings of seven structured interviews conducted in three separate long-term care centers in Tromsø, Oslo and Trondheim, Norway in order to answer the following questions: What are the perceptions and attitudes of nurses toward patients with dementia? What is the environment of the Teaching Nursing Home and how does this influence care of patients with dementia?  And what is the organizational structure surrounding care for patients with dementia including staffing patterns, workload and family care?   

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