The Impact of Day Care on People With Dementia

Day care services are now widely used by people with dementia. Research on day care has focused on benefits to caregivers. The impact of day care attendance on the person with dementia has been relatively neglected. Caregivers of new attenders at a dementia-specific day centre were asked to describe any change noted in their relative since attendance at the day centre had commenced. Forty-two per cent of new attenders included in the study showed a marked improvement in mood and/or behaviour, attributed by caregivers to day centre attendance, which was maintained in most cases 9 months after initial attendance. All those showing a marked improvement were female. There was a trend for day care responders to live alone though this failed to reach significance at the 5% level. Other factors such as age, degree of cognitive impairment, level of dependency and behavioural disturbance and frequency of day care attendance did not differentiate responders from non-responders. However, female responders tended to have less cognitive impairment than female non-responders. Although the number of subjects in the study is small, the findings have implications for service provision and may indicate directions for future research.