04.07.01. Is there a mechanism to coordinate care across sectors in government for people with dementia? | Kenya

04.07.01. Is there a mechanism to coordinate care across sectors in government for people with dementia? | Kenya

01 Apr 2022

Similar to mental health care, dementia care is not well integrated within health care delivery systems. Mental health care, which also covers dementia care is only provided in 29 of the 284 Level 4 hospitals and above but only few hospitals have a multidisciplinary team (psychiatric nurses, social workers, psychologists and medical doctors). There is also no structured needs assessment on the person with dementia and the caregiver. Often, the first point of entry is the outpatient clinic where a doctor gives a diagnosis and recommends referral to a psychiatric nurse for further psychosocial management after pharmacological and non-pharmacological prescription by the doctor. A care plan is then developed by the nurse or the psychologist rather than with the patient (focus group discussion with health care workers through the STRiDE project). There are no documents illustrating the existence of this process.