Home follow-up of early- and mid-stage Alzheimer's patients

Abstract

The study is carried out as an action research to investigate the effect of nursing interventions during home visits to early- and mid-stage Alzheimer's patients problems and the anxiety and depression levels. The study was realized as one initial visit, six weekly visits and another visit 1 month later in 40 early- and mid-stage Alzheimer's patients who met the study criterion and accepted to join the study presenting at a Turkish university hospital. The data were collected using the Alzheimer's Patient Data Collection Form, Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia and Spielberg's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. We found a statistically significant decrease in patient problems compared to the initial with nursing interventions administered during home visits during the study (P < 0.05). However, the follow-up visit 1 month after the weekly visits did not show persistence of this decrease in problems and some problems were found to have increased. There was a statistically significant decrease in the mean depression and situational and continuous anxiety scores of the patients at the end of the follow-up compared to the initial period with the nursing interventions administered during the follow-ups (P < 0.05). According to these results, it is recommended that continuous programmes for home care should be developed for Alzheimer's patients in Turkey.