The Impact of Implementing a Namaste Care Intervention in UK Care Homes for People Living with Advanced Dementia, Staff and Families

Latham, Isabelle ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1096-778X, Brooker, Dawn ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8636-5147, Bray, Jennifer ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1315-7643, Jacobson-Wright, Nicola and Frost, Faith (2020) The Impact of Implementing a Namaste Care Intervention in UK Care Homes for People Living with Advanced Dementia, Staff and Families. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 (16). e6004. ISSN 1660-4601

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Abstract

Care homes can struggle to provide optimal care for residents with advanced dementia. Namaste Care provides a structured daily programme of physical, sensory and emotional care delivered by regular care workers. A three-year, mixed method process study of implementation and impact created a manualised Namaste Care Intervention for UK care homes (NCI-UK). This article reports on the impact of NCI-UK delivered consistently in five care homes for 12−24 weeks. Impact for residents was assessed using, pre-post data, showing significant positive effects for QUALID (t = 2.92, p = 0.01, n = 31) and CMAI (t = 3.31, p = 0.002, n = 32), alongside many qualitative examples of positive impacts on wellbeing, responsiveness and communication. Pre-post staff questionnaire data (n = 20) were not significant. Qualitative data indicated that NCI-UK is a positive staff experience, providing sense of purpose, improved wellbeing and relationships. The care homes reported benefiting from implementing NCI-UK in terms of reputation and quality improvement. Family interviews were also positive, relating to seeing the difference, improving relationships and being involved. NCI-UK can therefore be recommended as an impactful intervention for residents, staff and families.

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