Improving Wellbeing and Health for People with Dementia

Aims of WHELD

Improving Wellbeing and Health for People with Dementia (WHELD) was a 5 year NIHR funded programme which aimed to develop and evaluate an intervention based upon the most effective, currently available therapies. The intended outcome of the programme was to develop an intervention which provides a broad range of benefits to people with dementia living in care homes.  Specifically, WHELD aimed to;

• Improve mental health & quality of life
• Improve the quality of prescription of antipsychotic drugs
• Reduce agitation for people with dementia in care homes

The WHELD study developed a training programme for care for care home staff, based on person-centred care and a range of non-drug approaches such as social interaction.

How has WHELD made a difference?

Care home staff who participated in the WHELD programme reveal what a difference it made to the well-being of the people they cared for, and the way it gave a new richness to their work:

What has WHELD achieved

1. Three systematic reviews;

• To identify the existing evidence for effective psychosocial treatments for people with dementia who experience behavioural and psychiatric symptoms of dementia
• To understand what factors influence staff working in care homes in using psychological and social interventions in practice
• To identify training materials which are evidence based and effective in improving outcomes for people with dementia in care homes

2. Adaptation of the most effective approaches to make an optimised intervention applicable to UK care home settings
3. Completion of two randomised control trials to evaluate the WHELD intervention, the first with 277 people and 16 care homes and the second with over a thousand people and 69 care homes.

Results from WHELD

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust reports on the findings from WHELD;

• Dementia care improved by just one hour of social interaction each week
• Improving quality of life and reducing agitation in dementia

WHELD training

Information about the WHELD intervention has been shared through a programme of workshops, written communications and road-shows with health professionals, care professionals and commissioners to promote widespread use of the intervention.

An e-learning module for GPs has been created and best practice guidance for GPs has been updated.  The intervention was selected as case example of good practice at the Making the Case for Social Sciences event held at the House of Commons in 2016 – Improving skilled care means less medication. 

Useful resources

Project funding

This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research Programme (grant: RPPG-0608-10133). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. NIHR | National Institute for Health Research