A new study has highlighted the efficacy of telehealth for dementia care, which researchers say can be just as effective as face-to-face visits.
A new study has highlighted the benefit of using telehealth for dementia care, replacing face-to-face home visit services with digital health technologies.
Currently, dementia affects almost 50 million people worldwide, which is predicted to increase to 131.5 million people by 2050. Every three seconds someone in the world develops dementia.
Applying digital health in rural settings
The study looked at 63 people living with mild to moderate dementia, and their care partners.
It found that telehealth services using videoconferences can save travel time – particularly in rural and remote areas – as well as equipping families with strategies to promote independence in the person with dementia.
Lead researcher Flinders University Associate Professor Kate Laver, an ARC Discovery Early Career Research Fellow and occupational therapist, said: “Giving care partners strategies to cope with, and delay, functional decline in people living with dementia is a priority, given that about 70% of people with dementia live in their own home with support from family members and friends for assistance.
“Giving families evidence-based information and skills can promote independence and improve quality of life and wellbeing for people with dementia.”
Telehealth promises to provide a more affordable alternative for older people living at home, including those with chronic health conditions.
The researchers concluded that the use of telehealth technologies to deliver non-pharmacologic interventions for people with dementia and their care partners may reduce the costs of delivering the intervention, increase accessibility, and facilitate research translation.
The study was carried out by researchers at Flinders University and published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
