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Although help-seeking research is useful to improve the quality of dementia care and mental health of care staff, most studies have focused on family caregivers. The details of help-seeking behavior among care staff remain unclear. This study investigated the features of help-seeking behavior among staff working in long-term care facilities. Two online surveys were conducted, targeting individuals working in long-term care facilities in Kinki Region, as well as general citizens who are users of crowdsourcing services across all regions of Japan. Four hypothetical difficult caregiving situations were developed to examine staff help-seeking behavior, including older people's going-home behavior, care resistance, apathy, and depression. When confronted with difficult situations, participants responded regarding whether they sought help from other staff, the timing of help-seeking when they chose to seek help from others, and the level of burden to deal with the situations. A total of 505 participants (273 care staff and 232 general citizens) were analyzed. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the burden in all situations experienced by general citizens was higher than that among care staff. Three-way ANOVA also showed that excessive help-seeking styles were associated with difficult care situations. Finally, care staff engaged in help-seeking behavior more quickly than general citizens. The current findings showed that, compared to general citizens, care staff exhibited more frequent help-seeking behavior, which would be helpful to support problem-solving or alleviate the burden of care. Additional research is necessary to clarify the functions of help-seeking behavior in dementia care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The predictive abilities of computer-based screening devices for early cognitive decline (CD) in older adults have rarely been longitudinally examined. Therefore, this study examined the ability of CogEvo, a short-duration, computer-based cognitive screening device requiring little professional involvement, to predict CD among community-dwelling older adults. We determined whether 119 individuals aged ≥ 65 years living in Japanese rural communities who scored ≥ 24 on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) at baseline developed CD by annually administering the MMSE to them. CD was defined as an MMSE score of ≤23. At baseline, the overall CogEvo judgment grade, with lower grades indicating better cognitive function, was calculated from the results of various cognitive tasks. Over 2 years, 10 participants developed CD. Participants with grades of 4 had a higher percentage of CD cases than those with grades of ≤3 (p < 0.01). This relationship remained significant after controlling for possible confounders, including the MMSE score at baseline. The sensitivity and specificity of the CogEvo grade cutoff of 4 were 50.0% and 93.6%, respectively. In conclusion, CogEvo may be an efficient tool for identifying individuals at a high risk for dementia. The possibility of missing CD cases should be considered when using CogEvo for screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cognitive assessment through communication has been the focus of recent studies because the conventional cognitive tests are often considered invasive for older people. Although the Conversational Assessment of Neurocognitive Dysfunction is designed to assess cognitive function non‐invasively, inter‐rater reliability remains unclear. The current study investigated the Conversational Assessment of Neurocognitive Dysfunction's reliability. Methods: The Conversational Assessment of Neurocognitive Dysfunction was used by four clinical psychologists, who evaluated 38 older people with and without cognitive dysfunction. One clinical psychologist evaluated the assessment based on face‐to‐face communication with participants, while the other clinical psychologists evaluated it according to the audio data in the digital voice recorder. All clinical psychologists were blind to the results of other conventional cognitive tests and details surrounding participants' daily living activities. Results: The univariate correlation scores of the Conversational Assessment of Neurocognitive Dysfunction among evaluators ranged from 0.61 to 0.79, all of which were significant (P < 0.001). The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.64 (P < 0.001, 95% CI: 0.53–0.79 for agreement) and 0.67 (P < 0.001, 95% CI: 0.45–0.77 for consistency). The Conversational Assessment of Neurocognitive Dysfunction score of all evaluators was significantly associated with conventional cognitive tests like the Mini‐Mental State Examination (P < 0.001). Conclusions: The findings suggested that the Conversational Assessment of Neurocognitive Dysfunction has moderate to good inter‐rater reliability and high concurrent validity as a cognitive assessment tool, and it would be useful in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the socio-economic factors influencing public awareness of the adult guardianship and civil trust systems in Japan. The results of this study show that financial literacy is the most influential factor affecting knowledge of the adult guardianship and civil trust systems. Gender, age, living alone, income, and assets are also found to be related to knowledge about these systems, but they are not consistent. We argue that policy makers should emphasize financial literacy and conduct targeted promotion campaigns to help those living with dementia to continue to participate in and benefit from economic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Aims: To examine the direct and indirect relationships between the characteristics of people with dementia and caregivers associated with caregivers' quality of life. Background: Complex relationships exist among the factors associated with caregivers' quality of life. Design: This study was a retrospective cross‐sectional design. Methods: The data were retrospectively extracted from participants who had visited the Center for Diagnosis of Dementia at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine from April 2013–March 2016. The data search was conducted on 21 April 2017. In total, 110 people with dementia and their caregivers participated. The characteristics of people with dementia were evaluated in terms of cognitive function, basic and instrumental activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms. We also evaluated caregivers' quality of life, depressive symptoms and care burden. Path analysis was used to investigate direct and indirect relationships. Results: The path analysis revealed that care burden and depressive symptoms directly affected caregivers' quality of life. Furthermore, declines in instrumental activities of daily living among people with dementia indirectly affected caregivers' quality of life, while declines in cognitive function of people with dementia also indirectly affected caregivers' care burden and depressive symptoms. Conclusion: Caregiver quality of life was directly and indirectly affected by the characteristics of caregivers and people with dementia. The present findings provided evidence that factors related to both people with dementia and caregivers should be considered when nursing interventions are conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]