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Care of Patients with Dementia

The project to develop these guidelines was funded by the NSW Department of Health under the NSW Action Plan on Dementia 1996-2001. The purpose of the project was to provide general practitioners with a resource for the care of people with dementia that encourages early intervention, ongoing management throughout the course of the disease and partnership with carers and other service providers.The project was funded following advice from the General Practitioner Working Group on Dementia and aimed to address some of the issues raised in the Mid-Plan Report on the National Action Plan for Dementia Care 1992-1996.

The project aimed to bring together the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), representing practising doctors, and two university departments of general practice to address the important and so far somewhat neglected issue of quality care of patients with dementia in the community, including support for their families and carers. It did this by establishing these guidelines, and then testing them in general practice.

The objectives were:

1. To develop guidelines for the diagnosis and ongoing management of people with dementia in general practice in partnership with carers, families and relevant services.

2. To field test these guidelines in general practice.

An advisory committee of GPs and other relevant stakeholders such as geriatricians, psychogeriatricians, nurses, and carer consumer representatives was established to oversee the project, and met three times during the course of the project. A half-time project officer was employed to work under the guidance of the grant holders and the advisory committee.

The team conducted a review of the literature and current guidelines and liaised with practitioners in related disciplines. Draft guidelines specifically related to the usual working procedures of general practice were developed with input from the advisory committee and three focus groups of general practitioners.These were then field tested by 17 general practitioners who used them in their practices to audit their current management of 119 patients against the guidelines.They then provided feedback about the usefulness of the guidelines with these patients, and their comments were used in finalising the guidelines.

A further survey by the NSW Department of Health of eight GPs unconnected with the trial indicated satisfaction with the format of the guidelines.

Subsequently the guidelines have been updated from time to time when new information has come to hand.

The guidelines have been endorsed by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

Publication Date: 3 December 2003