Enhancing and Standardizing Care for Agitation and Aggression in Alzheimer’s Disease

Award Date: 2018

Project Lead(s): Sanjeev Kumar

Project Title: Enhancing and Standardizing Care for Agitation and Aggression in Alzheimer’s Disease

This project team has developed and implemented an integrated care pathway (ICP) to treat agitation and aggression in dementia at CAMH and a partner long-term care facility. The ICP resulted in better outcomes and lowered medication use. In this study, the team will standardize and evaluate the behavioural intervention aspect of the ICP to further decrease medication use and study predictors of response to behavioural interventions and medications. This group will enrol 220 participants across 7 sites (4 academic hospitals and 3 long term care homes across Canada). Data will be collected on clinical parameters such as agitation, falls, medication use, caregiver burden as well as about economic impact of care before and after the structured behavioural interventions. If successful, this project will minimize medication use and improve the quality of life for patients with dementia and their caregivers.