OPTIMAL in NH Residents With Dementia

Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias Clinical Trial

Official title: Optimizing Mealtime Care (OPTIMAL): Development and Pilot Testing of a Person-Centered Mealtime Care Intervention for Nursing Home Residents With Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD)

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this study is to develop and refine OPTIMAL and evaluate its feasibility, fidelity, and usefulness. The OPTIMAL is designed to teach staff to effectively engage residents in eating using individualized, person-centered behavioral strategies.

Clinical Trial Description

This study developed and refined OPTIMAL, and evaluated its feasibility, fidelity, and usefulness. We used mixed methods (i.e., focus groups, a pilot single-group repeated measures) to refine and test OPTIMAL. We collected repeated measures at 3 time points: baseline (T1), immediately post intervention (6 weeks post baseline, T2), and 6-week post intervention (12 weeks post baseline, T3). At each time point, we assessed quality of staff engagement and resident outcomes including eating performance and BMI through collection and coding of videotaped observations of dyadic mealtime interaction (videos; Aim 2&3) over 6 meals in 2 consecutive days (2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 2 dinners) for each staff-resident dyad. We used Cue Utilization and Engagement in Dementia (CUED) mealtime video coding scheme, an innovative, feasible, and reliable tool that our team has developed and validated, and assessed resident mealtime challenging behaviors including resistive behaviors and functional impairments and intake success rate using videos collected in this study.11, 25

The specific aims are:

1. Develop, evaluate, and refine OPTIMAL intervention protocol and training materials. We will integrate evidence from literature and our prior work to develop the intervention protocol and training materials, addressing resident mealtime difficulties, targeted PCMC strategies, and establishment of individualized PCMC plans. We will conduct separate focus group interviews of staff and family participants on the acceptability and appropriateness of the intervention protocol and training materials before pilot testing. Data obtained will be used to refine the intervention protocol and training materials before pilot testing.

2. Determine feasibility, fidelity, and usefulness of OPTIMAL. Feasibility on participant identification, recruitment, consent, and retention will be evaluated descriptively. Fidelity will be assessed on a) delivery of treatment (staff attendance to training sessions), b) receipt of treatment (staff knowledge and self-efficacy pre- & post-training), and c) enactment of treatment skills (staff PCMC&TCMC behaviors, quality of staff engagement). We will conduct focus group interviews of staff to assess the usefulness of OPTIMAL after T3.

3. Describe resident outcomes (Exploratory). We will measure and describe resident mealtime difficulties, eating performance, intake success rate, body weight, and body mass index using descriptive statistics over time for two treatment groups. Data obtained will inform estimates of effect sizes for a future larger-scale trial. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Alzheimer Disease
• Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias
• Dementia

• NCT number: NCT05255068
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of Iowa
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: May 16, 2022
• Completion date: November 5, 2022