A DICE-Y APPROACH TO TAMING DEMENTIA SYMPTOMS

Treatment for managing dementia depends on its type and severity, but drug therapy often plays a role. Drugs can't cure dementia, but psychotropic medications, which include antipsychotics, antidepressants and anticonvulsants, are used with extreme caution in certain cases to help improve behavioural symptoms such as aggression, agitation, lack of inhibition and depression -- symptoms that caregivers tend to feel are more stressful or difficult to handle than the trademark memory loss associated with dementia.

For many people with dementia, the potential risks of psychotropics outweigh their potential benefits. All antipsychotics, including haloperidol (Haldol), olanzapine (Zyprexa), quetiapine (Seroquel) and risperidone (Risperdal), significantly increase the risk of death, perhaps because they also increase the risk of stroke, heart attack and falls.

The DICE approach. In exploring ways to improve symptoms without depending on potent psychotropic drugs, experts from the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins Medicine developed DICE, a strategy designed to minimize problems by changing a patient's behaviour. The acronym DICE stands for describe, investigate, create and evaluate. The DICE approach is a collaboration among a caregiver, a clinician and, if feasible, the individual with dementia. DICE consists of the following four steps:

Describe: The caregiver describes to the clinician specific behavioural problems the patient is exhibiting and the circumstances and environment under which they occur. The person with dementia describes the situation if he or she has the ability to do so. Both the caregiver and patient convey the degree of distress this behaviour causes them.

Investigate: The clinician examines, excludes and identifies possible underlying medical and mental health causes for the patient's actions as well as drugs the patient may be taking that contribute to the behaviour. The clinician reviews the caregiver's handling of the behaviour and advises the caregiver on issues such as appropriate reaction and expectations. Finally, the clinician will examine the environment for possible improvements, such as reducing clutter or noise and improving lighting.

Create: The clinician and the caregiver create a plan to prevent or respond to either a specific action or general behaviour to enhance the environment and improve caregiver skills and well-being.

Evaluate: The clinician evaluates and assesses the patient's and caregiver's compliance with the suggested plan and makes any needed changes if the desired effects aren't achieved.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recommend the DICE approach in an effort to reduce the need for psychotropic drugs. The authors caution that doctors should prescribe psychotropics only after they've made other attempts to change behaviour - unless patients have severe depression, psychosis or aggression that poses a risk to themselves or those around them. The study outlining the DICE approach appeared in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

(Source:  Scientific American Health After 50, 30 March 2015)