Forebyggelse af udadreagerende adfærd hos ældre med demens

In the 2010 "National action plan for dementia", seven areas were pointed out requiring stronger initiatives. One of the areas pointed out was social interventions, including work with citizens with dementia displaying aggressive behaviour. In 2011, the National Board of Social Services initiated the method-development project "Prevention of aggressive behaviour in citizens with dementia”, focusing on citizens at care centres. The project aimed at developing a social method for aggressive citizens with dementia, and, through this, increase the well-being of these people, and improve the psychosocial working environment for staff. This report presents the results of the evaluation by the Danish National Centre for Social Research on the method-development project. The evaluation shows a significant drop in aggressive behaviour by the citizens who participated in the project. The offensive behaviour of citizens, particularly threats of violence and to some extent actual physical violence, decreased in the project period. Care centres also experience that they have more knowledge about citizens with dementia, and that employees are more able to handle possible episodes of aggressive behaviour, and not least, prevent the aggressive behaviour. This study was commissioned and financed by the National Board of Social Services.