PALLDEM-Homecare: Homecare practitioners providing end-of-life care for people with dementia
People with dementia who live at home are more likely to experience poorer quality of end-of-life care compared to those who live in care homes. Homecare workers, who provide paid care to people in their own homes, play an essential role in providing end-of-life care to people with dementia but receive little support and training.
The IPOS-Dem is a tool that helps to identify and assess palliative care needs among people with dementia. Palliative care is about providing personalised care that can improve the quality of a person’s life. The IPOS-Dem can be used to understand how the quality of life can be improved for people living and dying with dementia. However, it is not routinely used by homecare workers, and this project aims to evaluate if this is possible.
We are working with people with lived experience and our project collaborator, Home Instead Wandsworth, Lambeth & Dulwich, to: 1) understand how the IPOS-Dem could be used in homecare and 2) run a 12-week pilot test to see if the IPOS-Dem can be used effectively and with ease by homecare workers.
The project findings will be shared widely, highlighting the role of homecare in dementia end-of-life care.
Aims
We aim to explore, as a proof of concept, the implementation of the IPOS-Dem in homecare settings.
Principal Investigators
NIHR Dementia Research Fellow
Interim Director of Cicely Saunders Institute and Professor of Palliative Care
Investigators
Senior Lecturer in Palliative Care
Laing Galazka Chair in Palliative Care, Honorary Consultant in Palliative Medicine
Research Associate
Research Fellow
Affiliations
Funding
Funding Body: Marie Curie
Amount: £105,165.72
Period: September 2025 - September 2027
Funding Body: Alzheimer's Society
Amount: £105,165.72
Period: September 2025 - September 2027