WANDERING-- BACKROUND AND PROXIMAL FACTORS

University Of Michigan At Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

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Linked publications & trials

Abstract

This application is one in a trio of interactive projects. Together they have the long-term goal of developing theoretically-based, empirically-tested interventions for a range of behaviors commonly termed "disruptive or agitated" that occur among persons with dementia. This project focuses on wandering and non-aggressive physical behaviors (NAPB) with the aim of building explanatory models of these behaviors. With other projects in this interactive set, additional aims are to build an explanatory model applicable to the range of "disruptive, agitated" behaviors (herein termed need-driven, dementia-compromised behaviors (NDBs)), and to conduct further testing of the preliminary models developed for wandering, NAPB, and NDBs addressed in accompanying proposals. A descriptive survey design is proposed using a cluster sample of 288 residents with dementia from an estimated 15 randomly-chosen nursing homes. Direct observation, neuropsychological and personality measures, and indicators of physiological need states, along with light, sound, and temperature readings of the physical environment and selected aspects of the social environment will be used to capture background and proximal factors thought to operate in producing wandering, NAPB, and other NDBs. Multilevel regression modeling techniques will be used to identify background and proximal variables affecting wandering and NAPB. The resulting preliminary models of wandering and NAPB will be further tested in an independent sample obtained from the accompanying projects in this set. Further, data from a core set of background and proximal factors common across interactive projects will be combined to develop a model of factors operative in producing NDBs in general, again using Multilevel regression modeling techniques.