Increasing the workforce and providing dementia competency training are among the recommendations from a Missouri task force on Alzheimer’s care.
The Show-Me State’s Alzheimer’s State Plan Task Force met throughout 2022, holding town halls across the state to gather feedback on how to help people living with Alzheimer’s disease and their families.
The task force recently delivered a final report outlining goals for the state — and recommendations on how to achieve those goals — to Gov. Mike Parson (R) and the state legislature. Overall, the task force recommended creating a coordinated statewide response to serve as a resource for residents, as well as state recognition of Alzheimer’s and related dementias as a public health crisis.
The task force set a goal of improving residential and home- and community-based provider licensure requirements for dementia care by using evidence- and needs-based models. Recommendations under that goal involved using quality care indicators related to cognitive assessments, diagnosis, off-label antipsychotic medication use, direct care staffing ratios, and other care and safety standards.
In response to feedback at town halls about a lack of care providers and specialists, as well as limited options in long-term care facilities, the task force set another goal of accelerating workforce development in dementia care-related professions.
Among the recommendations to achieve this goal were partnering with higher education institutions to include dementia care professions in programming. The group also called on the state to use geographic-based grants, tax credits and other incentives for dementia care professionals to provide services in rural communities.
Another recommendation related to workforce issues was providing dementia competency training to community health workers — including those working in HCBS — on how to identify dementia symptoms and make referrals for care and support.
Tying the recommendations together is a goal to establish and fund a full-time state agency position to coordinate the state’s dementia response. The state dementia services coordinator would maintain relationships with state agencies and community organizations to prevent duplication of services, develop a roadmap of best practices to connect those in need to services, and evaluate the implementation of state recommendations to meet task force goals.
Missouri has 319 memory care units across the state, with approximately 9,015 memory care unit beds, according to the report.
Alzheimer’s Association data in the report noted that it will cost the country $321 billion in 2021 to care for people living with Alzheimer’s and related dementias, a figure expected to increase to $1 trillion by 2050. In 2022, an estimated 6.5 million Americans aged 65 or more years were living with Alzheimer’s disease; 73% of them were aged 75 or more years.
