Dementia Japan 31:380-388, 2017

Usefulness of longitudinal type clinical pathway in the medical and nursing care network for dementia

Takashi Maruyama¹⁾, Mamoru Hashimoto²⁾, Tomohisa Ishikawa¹⁾, Ryuji Fukuhara¹⁾, Hibiki Tanaka¹⁾, Yutaka Hatada^2,3), Seishiro Kojima⁵⁾, Manabu Ikeda⁴⁾

¹⁾Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kumamoto University Hospital
²⁾Department of Neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University
³⁾Heisei Hospital
⁴⁾Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine
⁵⁾Sola Clinic

We created a communication notebook to establish an effective cooperative system between medical care and nursing care for dementia, so called “HINOKUNI ANSHIN JUSHIN TECHO”.  The notebook was designed for the purpose of not only cross-sectional multidisciplinary cooperation but also longitudinal communication among patient/carer and multidisciplinary professionals for many years.  We distributed the notebook to 1,000 patients with dementia or their carers at Kumamoto Prefecture Dementia-Related Medical center and investigated its usefulness through the questionnaire survey six months later.  The results revealed that more effective cooperation for dementia care could be promoted through the use of the notebook.  However, the continuation of the effect requires the different strategies. Key words:Clinical pathway for dementia care, Regional alliances, Dementia-related medical center for dementia, dementia

Address correspondence to Dr. Takashi Maruyama, Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kumamoto University Hospital(1-1-1 Honjo, Chuo-ku, Kumamoto-shi, Kumamoto 860-8556, Japan)