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Comparing day care at green care farms and at regular day care facilities with regard to their effects on functional performance of community-dwelling older people with dementia
- Authors:
- BRUIN Simone de, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Dementia: the International Journal of Social Research and Practice, 11(4), July 2012, pp.503-519.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Day care at green care farms (GCFs) is a new care model for community-dwelling older people with dementia. GCFs are farms that combine agricultural production with care services for people with care needs, including frail older people, mentally disabled people and psychiatric patients. Currently, there are over 900 GCFs in the Netherlands. About 10% of them offer day care for older people with dementia. In view of the more physical and normal daily life activities available at GCFs than at regular day care facilities, this study investigated whether functional decline differed between subjects from both day care settings. In this observational cohort study, primary caregivers of 47 subjects from GCFs and 41 subjects from regular day care facilities rated the subjects’ functional performance three times during one year. They also provided information on the subjects’ diseases and medication use. Generally, no significant change over time in functional performance, the number of diseases and the number of medications was observed, and no differences in these rates of change were found between subjects from both day care settings. This study suggests that GCFs are not more effective in maintaining functional performance or slowing down its decline in community-dwelling older people with dementia than regular day care facilities.