Promoting meaningful activities by occupational therapy in elderly care in Belgium: the ProMOTE intervention.

BACKGROUND: Older people want to age in place. Despite advancing functional limitations and their desire of aging in place, they are not always faithful to therapy that maintains independence and promotes safety. Occupational therapists can facilitate aging in place. Occupational therapy is defined as the therapeutic use of everyday life occupations with persons, groups, or populations for the purpose of enhancing or enabling participation. AIM: To describe the content a high-adherence-to-therapy and evidence-based occupational therapy intervention to optimize functional performance and social participation of home-based physically frail older adults and wellbeing of their informal caregiver, and the research activities undertaken to design this intervention. METHODS: A roadmap was created to develop the occupational therapy intervention. This roadmap is based on the Medical Research Council (MRC) framework and is supplemented with elements of the Intervention Mapping approach. The TIDieR checklist is applied to describe the intervention in detail. A systematic review and two qualitative studies substantiated the content of the intervention scientifically. RESULTS: The application of the first two phases of the MRC framework resulted in the ProMOTE intervention (Promoting Meaningful activities by Occupational Therapy in Elderly). The ProMOTE intervention is a high-adherence-to-therapy occupational therapy intervention that consists of six steps and describes in detail the evidence-based components that are required to obtain an operational intervention for occupational therapy practice. CONCLUSION: This study transparently reflects on the process of a high-quality occupational therapy intervention to optimize the functional performance and social participation of the home-based physically frail older adult and describes the ProMOTE intervention in detail. The ProMOTE intervention contributes to safely aging in place and to maintaining social participation. The designed intervention goes beyond a description of the 'what'. The added value lies in the interweaving of the 'why' and 'how'. By describing the 'how', our study makes the concept of 'therapeutic use-of-self' operational throughout the six steps of the occupational therapy intervention. A further rigorous study of the effect of the ProMOTE intervention on adherence, functional performance and social participation is recommended based to facilitate the implementation of this intervention on a national level in Belgium.

The willingness and barriers to collaborate in the care of frail older adults: perspectives of primary care professionals.

BACKGROUND: This study investigated the perspectives of primary care professionals, in particular general practitioners, registered nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, on inter-professional collaboration, the barriers and the facilitators they perceive in the care of the frail older population. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study. In-depth interviews with healthcare professionals were performed, using open-ended questions about their perceptions on the care of frail older adults and inter-professional collaboration. Data was analyzed following the Basic Logical Model of Abduction and Creswell's coding method. RESULTS: Healthcare professionals indicated that when they explored problems complementary to the reasons for older people to contact a healthcare professional, these additional problems often seemed to be the main problem. They also stated that there was too little inter-professional collaboration in the care of complex chronic issues and lack of a shared vision on collaboration. Collaboration is still limited too much to contacting established professions. Health information technology can support both, inter-professional collaboration and working on an evidence-based manner. It can also be a facilitator to inform patients. The availability and use of health information technology differs between the professions. Success factors and barriers for sustainable collaboration were identified on several levels, namely innovation, individual, professional, patient, social context, context of the organization, economic and political context. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shed light on the willingness and barriers in collaboration of healthcare professionals in primary care for older adults. There is little inter-professional collaboration, despite the willingness of the healthcare professionals to collaborate.

Perspectives of older adults with a chronic condition on functioning, social participation and health: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Problems with mobility, functioning and social participation make living independently difficult for frail older adults. To continue living independently, therapy adherence is a prerequisite. The causes for non-adherence among older adults are multiple and complex, which is why insight into older adults' perspectives regarding their functioning is an essential factor to increase therapy adherence. This study investigates the perspectives of older adults on their functioning, social participation and health, and the factors influencing these elements. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study on the older adult's perceived functioning, social participation and health. Fourteen home-dwelling older adults suffering from chronic health issues were purposively selected. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with open-ended questions. Data were analysed following the Basic Logical Model of Abduction and Creswell's coding method. RESULTS: Assistive devices, the older adult's dwelling and living environment, professional and informal support, and medication are perceived as important determinants for retaining functioning and social participation. Attitude, social influence and personal effectiveness were found to influence whether a person performs or participates in an activity. A person's attitude is related to the significance the activity has to that person, the activity's importance, personal wellbeing, the person's values, and their desire for autonomy. Peers and children have a social influence on the level of activity of the older person. Traditions, in particular religious activities, along with personal effectiveness are motivating factors determining whether a person performs or participates in an activity. Personal effectiveness is linked to the person's belief in their personal competencies and to the relationship between effort and result. Finally, it appears that the type of coping strategy the older adult adopts, has an influence on their behavior. The participating older adults often used remarkable problem-focused strategies, which had a positive effect on their level of autonomy. CONCLUSIONS: Older adults have identified barriers and facilitators that influence their level of functioning and social participation. These findings help to create a framework for maintaining and increasing therapy adherence, which may be helpful in facilitating occupational therapists and other healthcare professionals to detect determinants of therapy adherence.

Home- and Community-Based Occupational Therapy Improves Functioning in Frail Older People: A Systematic Review.

OBJECTIVES: The objective is to assess the effectiveness of occupational therapy to improve performance in daily living activities in community-dwelling physically frail older people. DESIGN: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. We included randomized controlled trials reporting on occupational therapy as intervention, or as part of a multidisciplinary approach. This systematic review was carried out in accordance with the Cochrane methods of systematic reviews of interventions. MEASUREMENTS: Meta-analyses were performed to pool results across studies using the standardized mean difference. The primary outcome measures were mobility, functioning in daily living activities, and social participation. Secondary outcome measures were fear of falling, cognition, disability, and number of falling persons. RESULTS: Nine studies met the inclusion criteria. Overall, the studies were of reasonable quality with low risk of bias. There was a significant increase in all primary outcomes. The pooled result for functioning in daily living activities was a standardized mean difference of -0.30 (95% CI -0.50 to -0.11; P = .002), for social participation -0.44 (95% CI -0.69, -0.19; P = .0007) and for mobility -0.45 (95% CI -0.78 to -0.12; P = .007). All secondary outcomes showed positive trends, with fear of falling being significant. No adverse effects of occupational therapy were found. CONCLUSION: There is strong evidence that occupational therapy improves functioning in community-dwelling physically frail older people.