With increasing numbers of persons living with dementia and their higher rates of hospitalizations, it is necessary to ensure they receive appropriate and effective acute care; yet, acute care environments are often harmful for persons with dementia. There is a lack of dementia education for acute health care providers in Canada. Scotland presently delivers a dementia education program for health care providers, known as the Scottish National Dementia Champions Programme. The objective of this Policy and Practice Note is to present the collaborative work of Scottish experts and Canadian stakeholders to adapt the Dementia Champions Programme for use in Canada. This work to date includes: (a) an environmental scan of Canadian dementia education for acute health care providers; (b) key informant interviews; and, (c) findings from a two-day planning meeting. The results of this collaborative work can and are being used to inform the next steps to develop and pilot a Canadian dementia education program.

Health care system capacity and sustainability to address the needs of an aging population are a challenge worldwide. An aging population has brought attention to the limitations associated with existing health systems, specifically the heavy emphasis on costly acute care and insufficient investments in comprehensive primary health care (PHC). Health system reform demands capacity building of academic trainees in PHC research to meet this challenge. The Aging, Community and Health Research Unit at McMaster University has purposefully employed a capacity building model for interdisciplinary trainee development. This paper will describe the processes and outcomes of the model, outlining how the provision of funding, mentorship, and a unique learning environment enables capacity building in networking, collaboration, leadership development, and knowledge mobilization among its trainees. The reciprocal advancement of the research unit through the knowledge and productivity of trainees will also be detailed.

Intersectionality analysis is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities. Intersecting social identities may have an impact on the perception of burden by family caregivers of older persons with multiple chronic conditions (MCC). The purpose of this study was to explore the interaction of social factors on the burden of caring for older adults with MCC. A total of 194 caregivers of older adults with MCC were recruited from Alberta and Ontario. Survey data were collected at two time points, six months apart. Additive and multiplicative models were analysed using a generalised linear model to determine the level of caregiver burden. Medium-high social interference (impact on social life) was associated with higher burden when adjusted for age, gender, education, and employment status. The overall results of the five-way interaction suggest that males in general had lower burden scores than females. Irrespective of their education and employment status, females had generally higher burden scores. These results add to the current body of literature, suggesting areas for further research to fill knowledge gaps, and promoting ideas for evidence-guided public health interventions that focus on caregivers.

There is a paucity of research exploring how spouses to older adults with multiple chronic conditions make meaning of their caregiving experience. For this study, we asked: What is the experience of spousal caregivers to persons with multiple chronic conditions? We applied Thorne’s interpretive description approach, interviewing 18 spouses who provided a rich description of their caregiving experience; interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed. Themes were categorized according to challenges encountered, rewards gleaned, and sustaining strategies employed by participants in caregiving to their spouse with multiple chronic conditions. Unique findings relate to the challenges inherent in decision-making within the context of multiple chronic conditions. This article begins to address the gap in the literature regarding the caregiving experience within the context of multiple chronic conditions.

The number of people with dementia is growing at an alarming rate. An abundance of research over the past two decades has examined the complex aspects of caring for a relative with dementia. However, far less research has been conducted specific to the experiences of family caregivers providing end-of-life care, which is perplexing, as dementia is a terminal illness. This article presents what is known and highlights the gaps in the literature relevant to the experiences of family caregivers of persons with dementia at the end of life. A thorough search of the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and PubMed databases from 1960 to 2011 was conducted. Ten studies were identified that specifically addressed the experience of family caregivers providing end-of-life care to a relative with advanced dementia. Common themes of these studies included: 1) the experience of grief, 2) guilt and burden with decision making, 3) how symptoms of depression may or may not be resolved with death of the care receiver, 4) how caregivers respond to the end-stage of dementia, and 5) expressed needs of family caregivers. It is evident from this literature review that much remains to be done to conceptualize the experience of end-of-life caregiving in dementia.