Effects of FEED@Home Intervention

Summary

The main goal of this single-blinded multicenter randomized trial is to learn if the 8-week home-based Feeding EnhancEment in Dementia program (FEED@home) works to improve unplanned hospital utilization of advanced dementia patients with feeding problems who reside at home after discharge from hospital. It will also investigate the effect of Feed@home program on outcomes including feeding problem-related readmissions, sustainability on oral feeding, feeding difficulty, malnutrition risk, quality of life of patients with dementia, caregiver satisfaction with care, and caregiver burden.

The questions it aims to answer are:

* Does Feed@home intervention reduce unplanned all-cause hospital readmissions of advanced dementia patients with feeding problems at 1, 2, 3, and 6 months after discharge from the hospital?
* Does Feed@home intervention improve the outcomes including feeding problem-related readmissions, sustainability on oral feeding, feeding difficulty, malnutrition risk, quality of life of patients with dementia, caregiver satisfaction, and burden with care?

Investigators will compare Feed@home intervention to usual care after discharge to see if the Feed@home program improves the outcomes of patients and caregivers. The Feed@home program includes an 8-week follow-up care by speech therapists and nurses via home visits and teleconsultations.

Participants will be dyads of patients and their caregivers, and they will:

* Receive Feed@home intervention or usual care after discharge
* Give consent for access to patients' information and hospital records
* Caregivers to complete questionnaire at recruitment and 2 and 6 months after discharge

Conditions

• Dementia
• Dementia Severe

Interventions

OTHER

Home-based Feeding EnhancEment in Dementia (Feed@home)

The FEED@home program is an 8-week initiative led by a speech therapist (ST) and nurse team through teleconsultations and home visits: * Within 3 days after discharge, a nurse teleconsultation with the family caregiver to assess the patient's mealtime behaviors and provide feeding strategy recommendations and educational materials. * Two to three home visits by STs during mealtime (depending on the mastery of feeding techniques) to assess swallowing and cognitive feeding issues, providing tailored interventions and proper training of feeding techniques. * Two teleconsultations by nurses to assess the caregiver's techniques and provide additional training. * One additional home visit during mealtime by a nurse to assess the caregiver's mastery of the feeding techniques through observation. * The program lasts 8 weeks, regardless of readmissions, unless the patient converts to tube feeding, moves to a care home, passes away, or withdraws from study.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The University of Hong Kong

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jacqueline Yuen, M.D. · The University of Hong Kong

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

60 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-07-23

Primary Completion

2026-09-30

Completion

2026-09-30

Countries

• Hong Kong

Study Locations