Dementia Care Mapping: A Review of the Research Literature
The Gerontologist
Brooker, D. (2005).
The Gerontologist, 45(Special Issue 1), 11-18.
This review investigates the effect of dementia care mapping on quality of life and quality of care in people with dementia.
Not stated
1993-March 2005
All study designs (excluding descriptive articles and dissertations)
34
Articles published on dementia care mapping are of variable quality, but becoming stronger. "[Dementia Care Mapping] DCM's advantages are that it is standardized, quality controlled, international, responsive to change, multidisciplinary, and has an increasing research base. DCM provides a shared language and focus across professional disciplines, care staff, and management teams" (p. 17).
"There is evidence to suggest that level of dependency is correlated with dementia care mapping scores, specifically that low [well- or ill-being] scores are associated with high dependency levels" (p. 15). "The evidence that dependency level skews [Dementia Care Mapping] DCM results is strong enough to suggest that a measure of dependency should be routinely taken alongside DCM evaluations so that the results can be scrutinized for this relationship" (p. 15).
