もの忘れ外来受診に至った認知機能低下を認めた高齢者の家族の知識と高齢者への受診までのアプローチ—家族と本人へのインタビューから

Knowledge of Families of Older Persons with Cognitive Declines That Led to the Decision of the Need to Visit Memory Clinics and Approaches of Encouraging the Older Persons to Visit Memory Clinics—Interviews with the Older Persons and Their Families

抄録

　本研究の目的は，もの忘れ外来受診に至った認知症が疑われる高齢者（以下，本人）の家族の知識と本人へのアプローチ方法を明らかにすることである．

　もの忘れ外来に初回受診した本人と家族8組に半構成的面接を行い質的記述的に分析した．

　受診に至った家族の知識は「認知症症状の進行を遅らせる薬がある」「認知症高齢者の自動車事故の状況」などがあった．本人へ受診を勧めたアプローチ方法は〈家族の気がかり・心配が伝わるような言葉を用いる〉〈本人が受診を恐れる理由を推察してその理由を払拭する表現で伝える〉などが抽出された．

　認知症を有する人の今後の生活を具体的にイメージできる内容を普及することにより，家族が受診を決意できる可能性がある．また，本人が認知症かもしれないと客観視できるようなアプローチや本人の受診に対する不安を払拭するアプローチは，本人の受診を容易にすることが示唆された．

　This study aims to identify the knowledge of families of older persons with dementia-like symptoms (dementia-like affected persons) that led to the decision of the need to visit memory clinics and approaches of encouraging the older persons to visit memory clinics.

　We used qualitative descriptive design，and conducted semi-structured interviews with eight dementia-like affected persons and their families who visited memory clinics for the first time.

　The knowledge of families that led to the decision for dementia-like affected persons to visit memory clinics includes; “the availability of medicines known to slow the progression of dementia symptoms.” and “the frequent occurrence of car accidents caused by dementia-like affected persons.” For the approach used by families to encourage the dementia-like affected persons to visit memory clinics，the analysis identified the following approaches; “To use expressions that convey the anxiety and concerns of the families to the dementia-like affected persons” and “By estimating the reason why the dementia-like affected persons hesitate to visit the clinic，to use expressions that may eliminate the anxieties.”

　Providing information that may help families imagine how the future life of people with dementia will be like can help families to decide to have the dementia-like affected persons visit clinics. The findings suggest that approaches that enable the dementia-like affected persons objectively understand that they may be exhibiting signs of dementia，and approaches that eliminate the anxiety of a visit to the memory clinic may make it easier to convince the persons of the necessity to visit such clinics.