Elderspeak: Impact on Dementia Care

描述(申请人提供)：这项研究的目的是探索长期护理痴呆症住院患者在护理人员使用老年人语言时的反应。老年人语言是一种类似于婴儿语言的语言，已知这种语言对认知正常的老年人有负面影响。老年语言的特点是词汇简单、句子简短、说话缓慢、音调和音量提高，以及不适当的亲密引用，在长期护理环境中被护理人员广泛使用。研究表明，认知正常的老年人认为老年语言是一种居高临下的态度，老年语言会在员工与住院医生的互动中导致沟通中断，并导致抵制护理等问题行为。对护理的抵抗力(如退缩、攻击性、游荡)扰乱了护理活动，增加了提供护理的时间和压力。指导这项研究的基于需求的痴呆症妥协行为模型将沟通确定为痴呆症护理中问题行为的一个因素。然而，还没有发现任何研究确定老年人的语言交流，特别是如何影响患有痴呆症的老年人。 本研究的具体目的是确定护理人员在日常护理活动中使用老年语言对居民行为的影响。本研究采用探索性设计，运用心理语言学分析，探讨护理人员使用老人语言与照顾者痴呆症患者抵触行为之间的关系。实验方法包括收集和分析护理人员在长期护理环境中的日常生活活动中的视频记录和居民互动。护理人员-护理接受者之间的相互作用持续1-10分钟(N=60)，将使用有效和可靠的测量方法对护理抵抗力和老年语言标记进行编码。对关心分数的抵抗力将随着老年人讲话频率的下降而倒退。将报告对工作人员长辈讲话和随后的居民抵抗行为的顺序进行编码，以描述时间关系。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this study is to explore how long term care residents with dementia respond when nursing staff use elderspeak, a type of speech similar to babytalk, which has known negative effects on cognitively intact older adults. Elderspeak features simplistic vocabulary, short sentences, slow speech, elevated pitch and volume, and inappropriately intimate references and is extensively used by nursing staff in long-term care settings. Research has shown that cognitively intact older adults perceive elderspeak as patronizing and that elderspeak can precipitate communication breakdown in staff-resident interactions and contribute to problem behaviors such as resistiveness to nursing care. Resistiveness to care (e.g. withdrawal, aggression, wandering) disrupts care activities and increases the time and stress of providing nursing care. The Need-Based Dementia-Compromised Behavior Model that guides this study identifies communication as a factor in problem behaviors in dementia care. However, no research has been found that determines how elderspeak communication, specifically, affects older adults with dementia. The specific aims of the proposed study are to determine the impact of nursing staff use of elderspeak on resident behavior during activities of daily care. This study proposes an exploratory design that uses psycholinguistic analysis to examine relationships between nursing staff use of elderspeak and resistive behaviors of care recipients with dementia. Experimental methods include the collection and analysis of video recordings of nursing staff and resident interactions during activities of daily living in long term care settings. Interactions between nursing staff-care recipient dyads lasting from 1-10 minutes (N=60) will be coded for resistiveness to care and elderspeak markers using valid and reliable measures. Resistiveness to care scores will be regresses on frequencies of elderspeak. Coding of the sequence of staff elderspeak and subsequent resident resistive behaviors will be reported to describe temporal relationships.