Shared decision making about housing transitions for persons with dementia: A four-case care network perspective
Published in The Gerontologist, 2019
As cognitive decline progresses and the necessity for nursing home placement becomes more apparent, the involvement of persons with dementia (PWDs) in the decision-making about housing and care relocation tends to diminish …
We performed a qualitative data analysis to assess the extent to which housing and care relocation decisions for PWDs with their formal and informal caregivers correspond to an interprofessional shared decision making (IP-SDM) approach, and what light this approach sheds on their experiences with decision making. We used the IP-SDM model to content-code and analyze data from 4 care networks, each consisting of a PWD, 2 informal and 2 formal caregivers. Decision-making in all networks corresponded to most IP-SDM elements, but never included all network members …
Timely and honest communication helps to mitigate the distress of deciding against patient preferences, as could advance care planning about future housing transitions.
