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Visualising conversations between care home staff and residents with dementia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2013

ROSEMARY BAKER ,
DANIEL ANGUS ,
ERIN R. SMITH-CONWAY ,
KATHARINE S. BAKER ,
CINDY GALLOIS ,
ANDREW SMITH ,
JANET WILES  and
HELEN J. CHENERY
ROSEMARY BAKER
Affiliation:
UQ Centre for Clinical Research, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, The University of Queensland, Australia.
DANIEL ANGUS*
Affiliation:
School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Australia. School of Journalism and Communication, The University of Queensland, Australia.
ERIN R. SMITH-CONWAY
Affiliation:
UQ Centre for Clinical Research, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, The University of Queensland, Australia.
KATHARINE S. BAKER
Affiliation:
Department of Anesthesia, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA.
CINDY GALLOIS
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, The University of Queensland, Australia.
ANDREW SMITH
Affiliation:
Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland, Australia.
JANET WILES
Affiliation:
School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Australia.
HELEN J. CHENERY
Affiliation:
UQ Centre for Clinical Research, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, The University of Queensland, Australia. Asia-Pacific Centre for Neuromodulation, The University of Queensland, Australia.
*
Address for correspondence: Daniel Angus, School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Queensland 4072, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

People with dementia living in residential care often face the dual disadvantage of increasing difficulty with communication and reduced opportunities for conversation. Social interaction is central to wellbeing of residents with dementia, so it is important that care staff have the skills to engage in conversation with them. We studied conversations in 20 care staff–resident dyads, to examine conversation structure and content, patterns of engagement within conversations, including the topics around which engagement occurred, and communication behaviours by care staff that appeared to facilitate (or impede) participation by residents. The transcripts were analysed using Discursis, a computational information visualisation tool that allows interactive visual inspection, in context, of the contributions by each speaker, the turn-taking dynamics, and the content recurring within and between speakers. We present case examples (a) where care staff did most of the talking, initiated topics and were responsible for most recurrence of content; (b) where talk was more evenly shared between partners, with some topics initiated and/or elaborated by participants with dementia; and (c) where participants with dementia talked most, with care staff supporting the conversation. We identified accommodative strategies used by care staff, such as reflecting back the other person's responses to sustain engagement. We also noted care staff behaviours that impeded communication, such as not listening attentively and not allowing sufficient time for responses. The results from this study highlight aspects of social communication within the aged care context and suggest ways in which rewarding interactions between staff and residents with dementia might be encouraged.

Keywords

dementiacommunicationcarerconversationinformation visualisationDiscursis
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , February 2015 , pp. 270 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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