To Örebro University

Introduction Previous research has shown that nursing home applicants had negative experiences of living and receiving care in their ordinary housing due to several factors, such as difficulties in everyday activities and being depressed. However, whether these experiences stand solely for nursing home applicants, or are common in an older population in general needs to be investigated.

Aim of this study was to compare nursing home applicants with matched older adults with respect to difficulties in everyday life, life satisfaction and depressive mood.

Methods Using a case-control design, 34 participants (17 in each group) were compared using Wilcoxon signed rank test for continuous variables and McNemar test for binary variables. The magnitude of associations was explored using conditional logistic regression.

Results Nursing home applicants experienced more difficulties in daily life and were more depressed than their matched peers, and this difference between groups was significant. To experience several difficulties in everyday life and being depressed increased the odds for a nursing home application.

Conclusions As aging in place is the societal norm, older adults with increased likelihood of nursing home applications need to be identified and catered for in an early stage, to prevent nursing home admission.

Introduction Societal norms and policies encourage older adults to age and receive care in their home, referred to as ageing in place. Nevertheless, Swedish older adults apply for nursing home admission. To understand how ageing in place better could be supported, the aim was to study descriptions of older adults’ reasons for applying to a nursing home in documents of granted nursing home decisions.

Methods 160 granted nursing home decisions underwent document analysis, to study if reasons occurred due to person, environmental or occupational factors according to occupational theory model Canadian Model of Occupation Performance- Engagement.

Result Several factors in different parts of life were experienced to lead to a nursing home application, e.g., multiple impairments, anxiety, loneliness, or longing to be closer to relatives or healthcare staff. Additionally, reasons could also be recommendations from healthcare staff or that a spouse didn´t want to live together with support from home-based care.

Conclusions The results highlight societal injustices that occurred for older adults who age in place, which expedited the applications. The documents described how ageing in place shrunk their opportunities for activity, social cohesion, and the possibility to proximity to staff.

Background/Objectives: Recent guidelines on early intervention in children at high risk of cerebral palsy (CP) recommend parental involvement and family-centered home-based interventions with parents as primary trainers. Therapist coaching by home visitation is resource demanding, and telerehabilitation is a viable option for remote intervention and coaching. This study aims to describe parents' experiences of engaging in Baby-mCIMT coached remotely. Their infants are at high risk of unilateral cerebral palsy and the parents have been the primary trainers in regard to home-based intervention, optimizing the use of the affected hand.

Methods: A qualitative approach involving semi-structured interviews with eight parents was employed. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: The overarching theme "Parents in the driver's seat-learning through remote coaching to create conditions to enhance the child's motor skills" describes parents' experiences as primary training providers. The following three underlying categories with subcategories were identified: (1) Baby-mCIMT coached remotely in an everyday context-practical and technical prerequisites; (2) the child's response and the therapists' coaching supports active parental learning; (3) capability and sense of control-strengthening and demanding aspects.

Conclusions: Our findings revealed that Baby-mCIMT coached remotely empowered the parents as primary trainers, which provided them with opportunities for understanding and learning about their child and their development. The findings underscore the importance of responsive professional guidance and a strong therapist-parent relationship to succeed with the Baby-mCIMT program coached remotely and to manage the digital coaching format.

Background: Parenting demands a high degree of attention, planning, and problem-solving, including time management, demands that can be challenging for parents with ADHD. Let's Get Organized (LGO) is an occupational therapy group intervention aiming at developing skills in time management, organisation and planning. There is a need to investigate if LGO may have an impact also on parenting.

Aim: To describe how parents with ADHD experienced the intervention, their time management strategies, parenting and family life after the occupational therapy group intervention LGO.

Method: Interviews were performed with 15 parents with ADHD, after completing LGO. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: The findings are described in one overarching main category, Active parenting and better relations within and outside the family through daily time management with three underlying generic categories: Let's Get Organized facilitates empowerment in daily life; The individual and family - both facilitators of and obstacles to implementation of time management strategies; and A changed parenting and family life.

Conclusions and significance: Participants experienced a positive impact on time management skills after LGO, which generated more active parenting and better predictability in the whole family. LGO can be a valuable intervention for parents with ADHD.

BACKGROUND: Swedish social policy enables ageing in place with support from home-based care services despite high age and/or declining health.

AIM: This study aims to describe the daily life experiences behind the decision to apply for a nursing home placement in older adults ageing in place.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A qualitative design was chosen, and 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed using inductive qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS: The participants described a feeling of dependence in which they had to ignore their personal privacy when receiving home-based care. They reached a turning point when ageing in place was, for several reasons, no longer considered an acceptable option. This influenced their choice to apply to a nursing home where they expected that they could maintain control over their lives.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The results indicate that when enhancing ageing in place it is important to enable older adults to receive support to maintain autonomy in daily activities and to have the opportunity to age in the right place.

BACKGROUND: Limited time management skills cause problems in daily life for people with mild intellectual disability (ID) and "Let's Get Organized" (LGO) is a promising manual-based occupational therapy group intervention aiming to support management skills.

AIMS/OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the applicability of the Swedish version of LGO-S by i) exploring enhancements in time management skills, satisfaction with daily occupations, and aspects of executive functioning in people with time-management difficulties and mild ID, and ii) describing clinical experiences of using the LGO-S for people with mild ID.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Twenty-one adults with mild ID were included. Data were collected pre-/post-intervention and at 3- and 12-month follow-ups with: Swedish version of Assessment of Time Management Skills (ATMS-S), Satisfaction with Daily Occupation (SDO-13), and Weekly Calendar Planning Activity (WCPA-SE). There were few follow-up participants (n = 6-9).

RESULTS: Significant change in time management skills that maintained at 12-months follow-ups. Significant increase in regulation of emotions at 12-month follow-up. Results at 12-months follow-up indicated sustainability in outcomes as measured by ATMS-S. A non-significant positive trend was observed in other outcomes between pre- and post-intervention.

CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: LGO-S seems applicable for improving skills in time management, organisation and planning also for people with mild ID.

Home-based care is expanding, and we need to know more about what kind of support older adults need and how such support should be designed. One way to gain more knowledge is to study the experiences that underlie a nursing home application. However, older adults in need of nursing homes are often too weak to participate in research. Thus, this study aimed to describe the experiences of close relatives of the daily life of older adults in need of a nursing home. A qualitative approach was used, where fifteen relatives of nursing home applicants in central Sweden were interviewed using a study-specific interview guide. The interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings are presented in one main theme "Being the person who manages a fragile life situation" with three underlying themes: Balancing and fulfilling expectations, striving to achieve a status quo, experiencing a breaking point, a change is inevitable, and waiting and moving into a nursing home, a period of tension. The main theme describes how the participants contributed to managing the older adults' life situation and acted as a representative in contacts with health and social care. They tried to offer support in their daily life but over time experienced a breaking point when ageing in place was no longer sustainable, resulting in a nursing home application. The rationale for a nursing home application was often a combination of the older adult's own wishes and the fact that their relatives felt there was a combined need for extensive care and physical proximity to staff, which cannot be provided in ordinary housing. Sometimes the decision to apply was also based on relatives no longer having the capacity to continue managing an older adult's fragile situation.

BACKGROUND: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with sedentary lifestyle, low quality of life and low physical fitness. Studies in children with ADHD have shown that regular physical exercise can help reduce core ADHD symptoms, but evidence for this is lacking in adults. Although guidelines recommend multi-modal treatment, central stimulants (CS) remain the mainstay of treatment. CS are effective in the short-term, but their long-term efficacy remains to be established. There is thus huge unmet need for developing non-pharmacological treatment options, and for well-designed randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to test the feasibility and tolerability of structured moderate-intensity 12-week physical exercise program for adults with ADHD, as a prelude to an adequately powered RCT which includes long-term follow-up.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fourteen adults with ADHD were recruited, 9 randomized to an intervention group and 5 to a control group. The intervention group received physiotherapist-led 50-minute mixed exercise program, three times a week for 12 weeks, and the control group treatment as usual. Participants were assessed at baseline and after 6 and 12 weeks using clinical and physical evaluations, self-rating questionnaires, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) together with paradigms that tested attention, impulsivity and emotion regulation.

RESULTS: Three participants (21%) dropped out shortly after inclusion before receiving any intervention, while roughly 80% completed the intervention according to protocol. One participant from the intervention group participated in less than 60% of treatment sessions, and one who had done baseline fMRI was unwilling to do post-intervention imaging. Four participants in the intervention group (67%) reported increased stress in prioritizing the intervention due to time-management difficulties. Overall, consistent trends were observed that indicated the feasibility and potential benefits of the intervention on core ADHD symptoms, quality of life, body awareness, sleep and cognitive functioning.

CONCLUSION: Physiotherapist-led twelve-week regular physical exercise is a feasible and potentially beneficial intervention for adults with ADHD. There was a 20% drop-out initially and 67% of those who completed the intervention reported stress with time management difficulties due to participation. A third arm was thus added to the planned RCT where cognitive intervention administered by an occupational therapist will be given together with physical exercise. Clinical Trial Registration: https://clinicaltrials.gov, identifier NCT05049239.

Background: Core symptoms in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Many individuals with this disorder also have a sedentary lifestyle, co-morbid mental illness such as depressive and anxiety disorders, and reduced quality of life. People with ADHD often have impaired executive function, which among other things may include difficulty in time management and structuring of everyday life. Pharmacological treatment is often the first-line option, but non-pharmacological treatment is also available and is used in clinical settings. In children and adolescents with ADHD, physical exercise is used as a non-pharmacological treatment. However, the evidence for the effectiveness of exercise in adults is sparse.

Objective: To implement the START intervention (START = Stöd i Aktivitet, Rörelse och Träning [Support in activity, movement and exercise]) consisting of a 12-week, structured mixed exercise programme with or without a cognitive intervention, in adults with ADHD, and study whether it has an effect on core symptoms of ADHD as well as physical, cognitive, mental and everyday functioning compared with usual treatment. A secondary aim is to investigate the participants' experiences of the intervention and its possible benefits, and to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of START compared with usual treatment.

Methods: This is a randomized controlled trial planned to be conducted in 120 adults with ADHD, aged 18-65. The intervention will be given as an add-on to standard care. Participants will be randomized to three groups. Group 1 will be given a physiotherapist-led mixed exercise programme for 12 weeks. Group 2 will receive the same intervention as group 1 with the addition of occupational therapist-led cognitive skills training. Group 3 will be the control group who will receive standard care only. The primary outcome will be reduction of ADHD symptoms measured using the World Health Organization (WHO) Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1), Clinical Global Impression-Severity scale (CGI-S) and CGI-Improvement scale (CGI-I). The effect will be measured within 1 week after the end of the intervention and 6 and 12 months later.

Discussion: Data collection began in March 2021. The final 12-month follow-up is anticipated to be completed by autumn 2024.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT05049239). Registered on 20 September 2021 (last verified: May 2021).

BACKGROUND: Time-management skills are essential in handling daily life, and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders often have difficulty with these skills. Therefore, interventions targeting such skills are common in occupational therapy. The Assessment of Time-Management Skills (ATMS) is a self-rated instrument for measuring time-management skills.

AIM: This study aims to evaluate the test-retest reliability of the Swedish version of the ATMS (ATMS-S).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 33 participants with neurodevelopmental disorders and difficulty with time management completed the test twice, approximately 1 week apart. The test-retest reliability for the three subscales in the ATMS-S was analyzed using intraclass correlation coefficients. The smallest detectable change was calculated to determine the precision of individual ATMS units.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The results showed overall moderate to good stability for the measures. The intraclass correlation coefficients were 0.79 (time management), 0.82 (organization and planning), and 0.50 (regulation of emotions) for the three subscales, and the smallest detectable changes were 9.5, 6.9, and 15.7 ATMS units for the respective subscales. These results suggest that the ATMS-S is a sufficiently stable tool for measuring time management and organization and planning skills in adults with neurodevelopmental disorders, but may be less reliable for measuring emotional regulation.