Background

Although older adults living with dementia (OLWD) are at high risk for falls, few strategies that effectively reduce falls among OLWD have been identified. Dementia care partners (hereinafter referred to as ‘care partners’) may have a critical role in fall risk management (FRM). However, little is known about the ways care partners behave that may be relevant to FRM and how to effectively engage them in FRM.

Methods

Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 primary care partners (age: 48-87; 79% women; 50% spouses/partners; 64% completed college; 21% people of colour) of community-dwelling OLWD to examine their FRM behaviours, and their observations of behaviours adopted by other care partners who were secondary in the caring role.

Results

The analysis of interview data suggested a novel behavioural framework that consisted of eight domains of FRM behaviours adopted across four stages. The domains of FRM behaviours were

1. functional mobility assistance,
2. assessing and addressing health conditions,
3. health promotion support,
4. safety supervision,
5. modification of the physical environment,
6. receiving, seeking, and coordinating care,
7. learning, and
8. self-adjustment.

Four stages of FRM included

1. supporting before dementia onset,
2. preventing falls,
3. preparing to respond to falls, and
4. responding to falls.

FRM behaviours varied by the care partners’ caring responsibilities. Primary care partners engaged in behaviours from all eight behavioural domains; they often provided functional mobility assistance, safety supervision, and modification of the physical environment for managing fall risk. They also adopted behaviours of assessing and addressing health conditions, health promotion support, and receiving, seeking and coordinating care without realizing their relevance to FRM. Secondary care partners were reported to assist in health promotion support, safety supervision, modification of the physical environment, and receiving, seeking, and coordinating care.

Conclusions

The multi-domain and multi-stage framework derived from this study can inform the development of tools and interventions to effectively engage care partners in managing fall risk for community-dwelling OLWD.