Approximately 90% of persons with dementia experience behavioral and psychological
symptoms of dementia (BPSD) over the course of their illness, including aggression, psychosis and depression. These symptoms are associated with worsened quality of life and higher risk of injury for persons with dementia and their caregivers. And many people with BPSD, especially in rural and urban underserved areas, do not have access to specialty geriatric cars, making it even more critical their primary care clinicians are prepared to assess and manage BPSD.
To help these clinicians, the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute’s community health team developed an educational intervention for healthcare professionals combining two complementary approaches: the DICE Approach™ and the academic detailing model.
Academic detailing engages healthcare professionals to persuade them to make changes to their clinical practice. DICE is an evidence-informed approach to addressing BPSD that encourages comprehensive assessment of patients and use of nonpharmacological interventions.
Thanks to a one-year grant from Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR), our community dementia programs team is investigating how to expand academic detailing and DICE into more communities in Wisconsin. We will be interviewing our clinic partners to determine more information about barriers to providing implementing DICE and academic detailing. We will also survey other clincis in Wisconsin to determine what resources are needed to better support their providers caring for patients with BPSD.
Thank you to WREN, Richland Hospital and Milwaukee Health Services for their help supporting this initiative.
This program is effective for one year beginning September 1, 2022. If you have questions about the program, please email us.