Quality care for persons experiencing dementia

Abstract

The degree of success in creating quality care for people suffering from dementia is limited despite extensive research. This article describes healthcare providers' experience with the ethical challenges and possibilities in the relationship with patients suffering from dementia and its impact on quality care. The material is based on qualitative, in-depth individual narrative interviews with 12 professional healthcare providers from two different nursing homes. The transcribed interview texts were subjected to a phenomenological-hermeneutical interpretation. To provide quality care to patients with dementia, the healthcare providers emphasized the importance of sensing and understanding the patients' emotional and bodily expressions through sentient attentiveness and recognition of the patient as a person. They also described reciprocity of expressions in the relationship where the patient recognized them both as persons and healthcare providers. The analyses of the findings are, inter alia, discussed in light of Løgstrup's relational philosophy of ethics.

Ethical issues in palliative care for nursing homes: Development and testing of a survey instrument

“…Communication issues within the healthcare team were identified including lack of written communication and unclear care instructions by senior clinicians. Communication issues within the team were common across the literature (Bolmsjö, Sandman, & Andersson, ; Enes & de Vries, ; Lillemoen & Pedersen, ); however, communication strategies were also used to alleviate ethical issues both within the team and when interacting with residents (van der Dam et al., ; Sellevold, Egede‐Nissen, Jakobsen, & Sørlie, ; Slettebø & Bunch, ).…”

Ethical challenges

“…This method is previously used in several studies describing ethics and care practice. [1][2][3][19][20][21][22] Participants The informants' working experience in dementia care ranged from 1 to 25 years. Although their education varied and they had different functions in the nursing home, they all had direct contact with patients in their daily work.…”

Relational Ethics and Nurses-Client Relationship in Nursing Practice: Literature Review

“…Relational ethics is a powerful guide to ethical and effective nursing practice. Studies have used relational ethics as a framework to explore human experiences and to understand clinical phenomena [11,15,20,[37][38][39][40][41][42]. Relational ethics help nurses recognize the value of opening dialogue, considering a diversity of perspectives, and understanding the need for attention to environments in order to provide therapeutic care [13,15].…”

“…In a study conducted by Sellevold, Egede-Nissen, Jakobsen & Sorlie (2013) [41], researchers explored healthcare providers' experience with quality care and described the healthcare providers' experience with ethical challenges. Relational ethics was also used as the framework for the study.…”