[The Advancement of Elderly Care: Development and Application of an Interdisciplinary Outpatient Dementia Care Consultation Module].

Abstract

With population aging, dementia has become a significant global health issue. Most people with dementia live in the community, are cared for by family members, and face complex and multifaceted care challenges. In line with Taiwan's Long-Term Care 2.0 policy, the Integrated Dementia Care Centers now established in many hospitals and linked with dementia clinic systems at the local level provide home care consultations and referrals. However, the primary focus of these centers remains on basic health education and post-diagnosis resource referral services. Thus, they lack an interdisciplinary approach, making it difficult to offer tailored, integrated care for people with dementia and their families. Therefore, integrating care intervention strategies from various fields to provide tailored and continuous care services is important. This article explores existing domestic and international dementia care consultation modules, introduces the integrated "Dementia Interdisciplinary Care Consultation Module" developed by our team, and discusses the applicability of and offers recommendations regarding this module. The developed module is intended to serve as a reference resource for outpatient medical staff and dementia case managers during health education consultations, and may be adopted into the training materials used by dementia care professionals and referenced in future domestic dementia care policy formulation work. The overall goal is to enhance the efficiency of outpatient dementia care consultations by ameliorating / resolving issues such as resource fragmentation, poor coordination, and service overlap, thereby improving the quality of family care provided to people with dementia.