Evaluation of Person-Centered Dementia Care Utilizing the CARES® Observational Tool

Abstract

The training of staff in residential long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes and assisted living facilities, is increasingly being conducted via asynchronous, online training platforms. Even when organizations have in-person trainers to conduct synchronous training on-site or via online video tele-conferencing formats, a paucity of research has evaluated how training in any form affects staff members’ actual, observable, person-centered care practices, particularly when working with individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease or other related dementias (ADRD).

This study sought to fill this gap by evaluating the impact of the two CARES^® online dementia care training programs on staff members’ observable care practices, as measured by the CARES^® Observational Tool (COT), a previously published person-centered observational tool.¹ The study hypothesized that staff completion of the two CARES^® online training programs would not only result in increased knowledge of ADRD and person-centered care practices within long-term care facilities, but also lead to an observable increase in the use of person-centered care practices, as measured by the COT. A single group pre-test/post-test design was used, which included a baseline, immediate post-test, and one-month post-test data collection interval among the entire staff of a memory care unit (N = 26) at a nursing home in a large Midwestern city in the United States. The results showed statistically significant increases in both ADRD knowledge (p < .0001) and observable person-centered care (p < .0001). The CARES^® online training programs and the COT seem to offer a promising solution to address the ongoing and expanding gaps in delivering and demonstrating effective person-centered care to people living with dementia (PLWD) in residential long-term care.