Supporting carer involvement in managing dementia comorbidities
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving the long-term condition management of people living with dementia through strategic involvement of family carers
IRAS ID
368643
Contact name
Angela Clifford
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Keele University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Our population is aging and rates of dementia and chronic conditions are increasing. People living with dementia struggle to manage additional chronic health conditions themselves such as diabetes and high blood pressure. They often need more medical appointments and their condition is more likely to get worse leading to increased service use and mortality.
Family carers can help them to manage their chronic conditions but they often aren’t involved by the care team. We want to find out how carers can be best involved in making decisions, following healthcare advice and seeking further help. Our findings will support people living with dementia to receive the standard of care that they deserve. This work will help our health services also by slowing demand on GP appointments and hospital care for chronic conditions.
Over 12 months we will invite 20 people living with dementia in the community together with their family carers to take part in an informal interview with the researcher about their experiences of managing their health conditions. We will also invite up to 27 healthcare providers across Staffordshire to join a focus group about their experiences of providing care. We will ask how carers are currently involved in the care of chronic conditions, how well it works and what could be improved. By bringing these groups together will we agree on valuable guidance to feed back to healthcare staff to change practice.
We will review our findings during an in-person stakeholder event to identify recommendations to improve care of people with dementia and other chronic conditions. We will work closely with health organisations so that they are aware of our research and our findings. We will bring together people who share an interest in this topic to help progress our ideas and further research through a community of practice.REC name
London - Harrow Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
26/LO/0218
Date of REC Opinion
9 Apr 2026
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion