Physical Aggression in Nursing Homes an On-Going Issue Research Paper
The article I selected for my evaluation is “Very Frequent Physical Aggression and Vocalizations in Nursing Home Residents with Dementia” by Annelies E. Veldwijk-Rouwenhorst, Sytse U. Zuidema, Martin Smalbrugge, Hans Bor, Roland Wetzels, Debby L. Gerritsen & Raymond T. C. M. Koopmans. In class, we discussed the parameters of aggression, which is what got me interested in this article. This study was conducted to determine what was causing nursing home residents with dementia to become physically aggressive. Physical aggression within dementia patients is an important issue to study because it not only affects nursing home staff but other nursing home residents.
This study and research from it are important to finding the correlation between dementia patients in the nursing home who are physically aggressive. Residents considered for the study met the criteria for dementia according to the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder,” as well as been resided in the nursing home for at least four weeks. The Independent variable of the study is the duration of time that patients are in the nursing home. Other variables tested in the study were age, marital status, and immunizations. Researchers in this study measured their duration of institutionalization by months. They categorized the durations of months by 0-3 months, 3-12 months, 12-60 months, and 60 or more months. The dependent variable in this study is the frequency of physical aggression of dementia patients within the nursing home. Researchers measured the dependent variable, frequency of physical aggression of dementia patients within the Nursing home, by measuring very frequent (having a score of 6 (several times a day) or 7 (several times an hour) on the items ‘hitting’, ‘pushing’, ‘biting’ and ‘kicking’) or less frequent.
The main findings of this study showed Nursing home residents with very frequent physical aggression were between the duration of 12-60 months of residency. For the (3-12) months the percentage was 17.8%, (12-60) months was 57.8%, and 60 or more was 13.3% Also, for females the mean age of these residents was 81.6 years. Most nursing home residents were in a moderately severe stage of dementia. The results of this study are important to identifying nursing home residents with a risk of very frequent behavior. Another reason is to have better treatment and quality of life of nursing home residents with very frequent physical aggression. If we know that the length of the time influences aggression then we should be able to conclude the reason for the high percentage of physical aggression between (12-60) months.
My critique of this study is that they should label the categories differently to better determine why they’re physically aggressive. Also, my critique is to focus on the point in the study where they find a correlation between duration and physical aggression. My critique is important to consider because the data showed that the duration of institutionalization had a correlation with physical aggression. While the results discussed apathy which did not show a drastic correlation to physical aggression. Future researchers should label the categories as “Physical Aggressive” and “Not Physically Aggressive”. The format of the data was not straight forward and the results discussed did not seem relevant to what the data in the table showed. It was hard to indicate what the main findings of the research were within the data table. Participants should focus on why the duration of institutionalization has an effect on nursing home residents being physically aggressive. I suggest that future researchers focus on physical aggression only, not vocalization. This way the study will be more focused on finding out why physical aggression is a problem in nursing homes. This suggestion would help better the environment of nursing homes for residents and workers. I would conduct a study using those who were classified as physically aggressive within the 12-60 month period and try and figure out the variable that triggers the physical aggression. I would determine where exactly they acted physically aggressive in the nursing home, the time of day, and the staff working. After collecting data from this group I would see if there were any correlations between environment, time, or staff to their acts of physical aggression.
My prediction for my suggested method of research is that either the location in the nursing home, time of day, or staff would be a common factor in the physical aggression. I believe that the reason why after the 60 month period was lower was that nursing home residents were aging, their dementia was progressing or they became acclimated to the reality of the nursing home. If researchers were to complete this study they would be able to possibly understand and significantly dementia patients becoming physically aggressive in nursing homes. Thus having safer nursing homes for other residents and staff.
In conclusion, the research and data collected in this study were valuable to understanding why dementia patients in nursing homes are becoming physically aggressive. This data provides a potential further understanding of physical aggression. Finally, this research is important because it can help better treatment and quality of life of nursing home residents with very frequent physical aggression.
