Grant: Foundation Grant

Dementia is a progressive decline in thinking abilities, such as memory, language, or planning. The number of people with Alzheimer disease and other types of dementia is estimated at 500,000 in Canada and 47 million worldwide. These figures are expected to double in the next 20 years, partly due to aging populations. Improving care for people with dementia living in rural and remote areas is especially critical because these areas tend to have a larger share of older adults. Also, our past work has shown that rural areas have few dementia-specific services and other existing services are not adequate. With the majority of specialists practicing in cities, most of the responsibility for dementia diagnosis and management in rural communities falls to local health care providers. It is clear that rural health care doctors, nurses, and other front-line workers will face significant challenges managing the growing numbers of people with dementia, if they do not have the skills and support they need. In the proposed program, we will work with rural health care providers in Saskatchewan to design and test the Rural Dementia Action Research (RaDAR) Primary Health Care Dementia Toolkit. The RaDAR Toolkit will contain best practices to suit the needs and resources of health care providers in different rural communities. Lessons learned in rural Saskatchewan will be shared with policy makers and research partners to spread the use of the toolkit to other rural areas in Canada. Research partners in Australia and Europe will help to spread the use of the RaDAR Toolkit outside of Canada. The ultimate goal of this research is to improve the quality of life of older adults with dementia and their caregivers living in rural areas. Our research will have a lasting ripple effect, beginning with better health care for older rural adults with dementia and leading to better quality of life for all those involved.