John Baker summarises the REFOCUS RCT, which looks at supporting recovery in psychosis patients through care by community-based adult mental health teams.
[read the full story...]Mental health recovery: does training staff help?
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Engaging inpatients with mental health rehabilitation activities
Elly O’Brien reports on a recent RCT of a staff training intervention for inpatients in mental health rehabilitation, which is designed to increase patients’ engagement in activities.
[read the full story...]Relationship training for children and family practitioners: does it work?
Martin Webber looks at a rare social work randomised controlled trial (RCT) on relationship training for practitioners working with children and families and finds that even findings from a study using ‘gold standard’ research methodology have to be carefully examined for reliability.
[read the full story...]Using Thickness Indicator Model tubes help staff to accurately modify fluid consistency when supporting people with dysphagia
When choking risk is identified for people with learning disabilities and fluid consistency modification is prescribed, it is critical that staff get the consistency right. Here we report on an efficacy study which looked at whether the use of Thickness Indicator Model tubes as a visual aid in training improved the efficacy of staff training.
[read the full story...]Choking in people with learning disabilities: what can be done to reduce the risk?
Today we have a debut blog from Nick Burton, Regional Operations Manager at Mencap. He reviews a new multi-agency report that provides guidance for services working to reduce the risk of choking in people with learning disabilities.
[read the full story...]Measure of confidence in providing psychological therapies for people with learning disabilities could help with outcome measurement
We report on a recent study, which involved developing a measure of confidence in delivering psychotherapy for people with learning disabilities.
[read the full story...]Alternatives to medication for agitation in dementia
Andrés Fonseca summarises the findings of a recent systematic review of the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of sensory, psychological and behavioural interventions for managing agitation in dementia.
[read the full story...]Dysphagia training increased staff confidence and knowledge
Difficulties with swallowing can lead to significant risk, from aspiration, dehydration, recurrent chest infections and of course choking risk. Dysphagia, the difficulty in preparation of food in the mouth for swallowing, can have a number of causes, physiological, environmental and behavioural. The consequences of not identifying and then dealing with the issue can clearly have [read the full story…]
Are there any effective interventions for preventing falls in older people with mental health problems?
Falls are estimated to cost the NHS more than £2.3 billion per year (College of Optometrists, 2011) and are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. This fact alone should be giving us the drive to look for ways to prevent falls in healthcare settings. A systematic review recently published in BMC Nursing (Bunn et al, 2014) is [read the full story…]
BMA launches Mental Capacity Act toolkit for doctors, to raise awareness and support decision making
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 came into force in England and Wales in 2007 to provide a legal framework for decision-making on behalf of people who cannot make decisions themselves. We have posted previously about the lack of practical knowledge of the working of the Act amongst learning disability community teams and pointed to articles [read the full story…]