In late March 2017, Sage Journals published a research article on the topic of responding to aggression and reactive behaviors in the home. The abstract and a link to the full article (available at no charge) are copied below.
The authors note: “Some dementia researchers, service providers and people with dementia have advocated against using the word ‘aggression’ in favor of the language ‘reactive behaviour’ to promote an understanding that such behaviours may be a reaction to a difficult situation such as fear, discomfort, pain or frustration.”
Researchers interviewed former care partners of those with dementia. The caregivers were asked how they discussed, interpreted, and responded to aggression and reactive behaviors.
Brain Support Network volunteer Denise Dagan read over the article and shared these highlights.
People coming into the home, whether family or in-home care workers, often triggered reactive behaviors. Care partners were frequently encouraged to institutionalize the care recipient because of reactive behaviors. They were unable to find respite staff for in-home care who were trained to handle reactive behaviors, and in some cases gave up trying to do so, resulting in ‘burn out,’ and eventual institutionalization of the care recipient.
The upshot is that care partners found by approaching ‘aggression’ as a reactive behavior, by employing their understanding of the care recipient, and by acknowledging the circumstances, the care partners were generally able to address the behavior in a way that calms the care recipient and satisfies the underlying need.
People unfamiliar with the care recipient — especially those who view reactive behavior as ‘aggression’ — are fearful of the behavior and, therefore, unable and unwilling to deal with it. This is true of family, friends, in-home and institutional caregivers. More education and training is needed to understand these behaviors as reactive, and to address them appropriately.
Sounds like good advice…
Robin
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journals.sagepub.com/eprint/Xb
Responding to aggression and reactive behaviors in the home
Sage Journals
Rachel V Herron, Mark W Rosenberg
First Published March 26, 2017
Behaviours such as hitting, spitting, swearing and kicking can be a common response to personal, social and environmental challenges experienced by people with dementia. Little attention, however, has been given to how partners in care experience and respond to these behaviours in the home. This paper examines the emerging theme of ‘aggression,’ in seven interviews with nine former partners in care of people with dementia in Ontario, Canada. We explore how partners in care talk about, interpret and respond to these behaviours drawing on recent conceptualizations of structural and interpersonal violence in health and social geography and contributing to the growing body of research on relational care. We discuss the responses to, and implications of, these behaviours at a range of spatial scales and identify important considerations for future research.