Dementia and the Cope Program
COPE (Care of people with dementia in their environments) is an occupational therapy program for people living with dementia and their families. COPE is a practical program, working with the person with dementia and their carer together, to help both the person with dementia to manage their day-to-day lives and their carer to support them to live at home.
COPE is designed for people with dementia who:
- Live at home; and
- have experienced changes in functional ability or behaviour
AND a family member, friend or neighbour who:
- provides care or support for the person with dementia; and
- is experiencing stress or challenges with their carer role.
Both the person with dementia and the family carer are engaged in and should be available for the duration of the COPE program.
COPE delivers a multi-session intervention over three phases, provided by specifically COPE trained occupational therapists, providing families with education and important skills to prevent and manage challenging care problems at home.
- Assessment: The occupational therapist identifies roles, habits, interests, abilities and carer concerns.
- Intervention: The occupational therapist trains the carer to:
For each targeted problem, a written COPE prescription is provided describing the problem, what the carer would like to change and specific strategies to address this.
- Generalisability: The occupational therapist works with the carer to develop strategies for the future.
- carer education about the disease and preserved capabilities of the person with dementia (i.e. what the person can still do);
- carer training in communication techniques, behaviour management, management of carer’s own stress and simplification of tasks;
- home safety assessment, including referral for home modification when appropriate; and,
- assessment of the person with dementia to rule out underlying conditions that may contribute to changed behaviours and other care challenges.
COPE was developed in the US by Professor Laura Gitlin (Drexel University) and A/Professor Catherine Piersol (Thomas Jefferson University) and was translated for use in Australia as part of the COPE Australia research project.