Following on from their report, in conjunction with Stow Healthcare and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL), detailing how switching to decaffeinated drinks reduces falls https://journalofdementiacare.co.uk/give-decaf-a-go, Care England has shared further research showing how switching to decaf also helps with other outcomes, including improved sleep and a reduction in stress and distress.
This latest report, entitled ‘Benefits of Decaffeination in Care Home Settings: Improving Sleep, Reducing Distress, 1:1 Support, and Challenging Behaviours’ is a collaboration between Care England and Cornerstone Healthcare. It shows impacts from switching to decaf including how one gentleman, noted to be a big coffee drinker, experienced a huge reduction in changed behaviour after switching to decaf, and how reported cases of pressure injuries also significantly reduced, indicating a protective effect on skin integrity from switching to decaf.
Dara Ní Ghadhra, Chief Operating Officer at Cornerstone Healthcare, says:
“The results as outlined in the paper were very interesting, and while we are not suggesting decaffeinated drinks are a panacea, it certainly contributed to a very positive reduction in challenging behaviours and significantly improved sleep patterns. The main aim of effective use of data in our sector is about improving patient outcomes. This doesn’t always mean making sweeping changes to processes or approaches. More often, intelligent data analysis allows us to make multiple smaller, targeted, intuitive changes, which collectively are hugely impactful because they’re based on real insight.”
You can read the findings here: https://www.careengland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/FINAL-2-Cornerstone-Healthcare-Decaffination-Trial-Report.pdf
(Please note: references to ‘Challenging behaviours’ are the language used by others in this news report and don’t represent Dementia Community’s use of language.)