Award Date

May 2023

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Occupational Therapy Doctorate

Department

Brain Health

First Committee Member

Donnamarie Krause

Second Committee Member

Jefferson Kinney

Number of Pages

78

Abstract

The aging population is growing quickly, raising concerns about the increasing numbers of those with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, as age is the common risk factor for acquiring the disease. The increase in the elderly population may influence higher healthcare costs and the need for more healthcare professionals like primary care professionals. However, primary care professionals face challenges meeting this population's demands due to the lack of training, confidence, and understanding of dementia care. A new California initiative called Dementia Care Aware aims to support primary care professionals by offering training, tools, and resources to increase early detection and confidence in assessing and addressing dementia. The Dementia Care Aware program is partnering with non-profit organizations in California counties, including Alzheimer's Orange County, to promote the program through educational outreach and advocacy efforts.This capstone is a quality improvement project evaluating Alzheimer's Orange County’s Dementia Care Aware outreach approach to determine if their methods increase primary care professionals' likelihood of taking the training and improving their confidence in performing cognitive health assessments. By doing multiple in-person drop-offs, providers who wanted more information were scheduled for an in-service. The in-service resulted in providers utilizing various cognitive screening assessments and needing to be more aware of the available community resources. As Alzheimer's Orange County recently launched its educational outreach and advocacy efforts, it is still being determined whether their approach improves the perceived confidence of PCPs in performing cognitive health assessments through the Dementia Care Aware training.

Keywords

Dementia; Early detection; Educational Outreach; Occupational Therapy; Primary Care; Survey

Disciplines

Occupational Therapy

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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