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

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  The study aims to investigate the effect of nursing interventions during home visits to early- and mid-stage Alzheimer’s disease patients problems and the anxiety and depression levels.
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  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.
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  The study recommends that continuous programmes for home care should be developed for Alzheimer’s patients in Turkey.

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.