Apathy in older people living with a major neurocognitive disorder in long-term care homes : a scoping review protocol

Abstract

Background: Apathy has major consequences for older people (e.g., deconditioning), their family care partners and formal caregivers. Although systematic reviews have been conducted, they have focused on the effectiveness of interventions to reduce this behaviour. Furthermore, they have not been specific to long-term care homes, despite studies conducted in that setting. However, older people in this setting have very different characteristics and more severe cognitive impairment than those in the community. For this reason, knowledge about existing interventions, causes, associated factors, and consequences of apathy is needed to choose or develop personalized interventions. Thus, this scoping review aims to map the state of knowledge about apathy in older people living in long-term care homes to develop personalized interventions. The Senses Framework, which provides a humanistic and relational perspective to examine apathy, will guide this review. Methods: Levac, Colquhoun, and O'Brien (2010) scoping review methods will be used. Eleven databases (e.g., CINAHL, MedLine, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Grey Literature Report) will be searched for literature using a combination of keywords and descriptors. Other data sources will be used to identify non-indexed literature or unpublished results (e.g., article references, journal tables of content, contact with key authors). The literature will be selected if it concerns older people, aged 65 or older, with a major neurocognitive disorder who exhibit apathy and live in long-term care homes. Data will be extracted using standardized extraction grids. A quality assessment of the literature will be done to consider this aspect in the data synthesis. A content analysis will be used to synthesize the results, as well as tables and graphs. Discussion: No scoping review has been found on apathy in older people living with a major neurocognitive disorder in long-term care homes. The results of this review will help identify the needs for further research and clinical and training development on this problem from a humanistic and relational perspective. It will also guide the development of personalized interventions.