Hearing and vision support in people with dementia living at home: Outcomes from the intervention development programme for the European SENSE-Cog Trial

Background Hearing and vision loss are among the most common and disabling comorbidities in dementia and may worsen the trajectory of decline. Improving sensory function may be an accessible and cost-effective means of improving quality of life (QoL) and other outcomes for people with dementia (PwD). Here we describe the outcome of a multi-step intervention development programme for the components and implementation of a cross-national intervention to support hearing and vision in PwD in community settings. Methods We used the process of ‘intervention mapping’ and a set of mixed method sub-studies to develop the intervention for PwD with hearing and/or vision loss. This involved scoping the gaps in understanding, awareness, and service provision, modelling a prototype intervention, refining the prototype into a draft intervention, and finally field trialling the draft intervention for feasibility, acceptability, and tolerability. Input from the ‘patient and public voice’ (PPV) was interlinked with each step of the development programme (Miah et al., 2017). This paper synthesises the results of sub-studies leading to a description and logic model of the intervention which was then evaluated in a fully powered definitive trial. The sub-studies of the programme took place in participants’ own homes and in university or clinic settings in four EU countries: Cyprus, France, Greece, and the UK. The Expert Reference Group took place in Athens, Greece. We used quantitative and qualitative approaches to analyse the data from the different sub-studies. Results A multi-component psychosocial home-based ‘sensory intervention’ designed to optimise hearing and vision in PwD to improve QoL and other dementia-related and care partner-related outcomes. Conclusion This intervention represents the output of the iterative development of a complex intervention to fulfil an unmet need for PwD and sensory loss.