Education and training to support physiotherapists working in dementia care: a scoping review protocol

Abstract

Background: The care of people with dementia is of global concern. Physiotherapeutic intervention can be of benefit to patients with dementia. Physiotherapists can play a role in assessment, falls prevention, pain management and gait re-education. Dementia care forms a significant part of the workload of a physiotherapist. However, there is a paucity of evidence on what constitutes effective education and training for physiotherapists working in dementia care. Objective: This scoping review aims to explore and map the evidence on education and training for physiotherapists working in dementia care. Inclusion criteria: Studies that explore dementia training and/or education for physiotherapists or for multidisciplinary teams, in which physiotherapists have been included. Studies that explore student physiotherapy training will also be considered. Systematic reviews, qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods studies, case studies and observational studies will be included. Methods: This scoping review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for scoping reviews. Databases to be searched as part of this review include: Medline, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, SocINDEX, CINAHL and, PsycINFO, with no limitation on publication date. Google Scholar and Open-Grey will be searched for grey literature, limited to the first 100 searches.  Titles and abstracts will be screened for inclusion and identified full texts reviewed independently by two reviewers. Data will be extracted using a draft data extraction tool based on the JBI data extraction tool. A chronological narrative synthesis of the data will outline how the results relate to the aims and objective of this scoping review.