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| Volume 11, Number 5 | October 17, 2003 |
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Team to study dementia care for rural Sask. seniorsA University of Saskatchewan research team has been awarded $1.25 million over five years from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and partners to study new approaches for providing services to rural Saskatchewan seniors who have Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. The announcement was made in Ottawa Oct. 6 by federal Health Minister Anne McLellan.
The U of S team will design and evaluate a special new clinic that will use videoconferencing and other innovations to improve access to diagnostic and treatment services for seniors in rural and remote areas. The team will also evaluate caregiver training in rural home care and nursing homes, and examine the use of existing dementia services in rural and remote areas. To date, researchers know little about dementia in northern Saskatchewan. "There are few medical referrals for dementia-related care and few long-term care facilities available in remote regions of the province," said team leader Debra Morgan. The CIHR will contribute a total of $750,000 from the Institute of Aging, the Rural and Northern Health Research Initiative, and the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research. Other funding comes from the U of S ($295,000), the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation ($120,000), and the Alzheimer Society of Saskatchewan ($85,000). "This multi-disciplinary research will evaluate new dementia care and training strategies that could greatly benefit individuals with dementia and their caregivers in rural and remote Saskatchewan communities," said Steven Franklin, U of S Vice-President of Research. "At present, rural seniors have to make numerous trips to various health service providers which can be costly, time-consuming and stressful. This research could lead to one-stop shopping for dementia assessment and treatment services." CIHR President Alan Bernstein said, "By partnering with organizations in the voluntary sector, we can share information and hear directly from patients, helping us ensure that the research we fund reflects the needs of Canadians." Morgan, an associate professor at the U of S Institute of Agricultural Rural and Environmental Health (I.ARE.H), says dementia rates are expected to double in the next 30 years as baby boomers age. Saskatchewan has the highest proportion of seniors in Canada - 15 per cent. Many of these seniors live in small towns and villages far from specialized care providers, which can make accessing these services costly and time-consuming. To diagnose and treat dementia more quickly and efficiently, the team will set up a memory clinic in Saskatoon that will provide a one-day, multidisciplinary assessment for seniors in rural and remote communities. The assessment will include a physical and neuropsychological evaluation, followed by a meeting to discuss diagnosis and treatment. Videoconferencing will be used before and after the clinic visit to conduct pre-screening and follow-up. The researchers will then evaluate the usefulness of this approach. The videoconferencing will involve up to 14 rural communities that are more than 100 km from a major centre. The project will assess the training needs of nursing aides working in rural and remote areas of the province and evaluate an existing dementia care training program that is currently available by correspondence. The team will also develop a culturally sensitive method of assessing memory problems in Aboriginal seniors. Other team members are Norma Stewart (nursing), Margaret Crossley (psychology), Carl D'Arcy (applied research), Jay Biem (I.ARE.H.), Andrew Kirk (neurology) and Dorothy Forbes (nursing). Graduate students in nursing, medicine and psychology will also be involved. The grant is part of more than $30 million awarded to 23 health research projects across Canada through CIHR's New Emerging Team (NET) grant program, which encourages the creation of collaborative, multi-disciplinary teams that explore pressing health research questions from a broad range of perspectives. "This team is studying a critical, but relatively unexplored, health service issue," said June Bold, head of the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation. " We are pleased to be a funding partner in this leading-edge research and look forward to results that will help improve dementia care for rural seniors in Saskatchewan and other parts of Canada." The research project's team leader Morgan has her PhD in Nursing from the U of S. She spent 1996-97 in the Founding Chairs Program of I.ARE.H. and 1997-99 as a Post-Doctoral Fellow of the Alzheimer Society of Canada. Morgan holds a five-year Scholarship from CIHR and is principal investigator on studies including: 'Care of Rural Elderly with Dementia in Special Care Units vs. Integrated Facilities', 'Dementia Care in Rural Saskatchewan: Challenges and Opportunities', and 'Impact of High Versus Low Density Special Care Units on the Behaviour of Elderly Residents with Dementia'.
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