Improving Well-being and Health for People With Dementia

800,000 people in the United Kingdom (UK)have dementia, of which 250,000 are living in care homes. These individuals have complex mental health problems, disabilities and social needs, which if unmet will continue to adversely affect each individual, as well as the main goal of enabling people to \"live well with dementia\", as presented in the National Dementia Strategy (NDS) (Department of Health, 2009). This optimized intervention WHELD is based on a factorial study and qualitative evaluation designed to facilitate the design of this current study and will combine this with the most effective elements of existing approaches to develop a comprehensive but practical intervention to improve quality of life in persons with dementia living in care homes. The intervention will combine training on person centred care, promoting person centred activities and interactions and provide care home staff and general practitioners with updated knowledge regarding the optimal use of psychotropic medications for persons with dementia in care homes. The overarching goal of this trial is to determine whether this optimised WHELD intervention is more effective in improving the quality of life and mental health, than the usual care provided people with dementia living in nursing homes. The cost effectiveness of the intervention will be assessed as well, with the aim to provide a cost effective, simple and practical intervention, improving quality of life and mental health of people with dementia in care homes; which can be rolled out nationally to all UK care homes as an National Health Service (NHS) intervention. The trial will be a randomised controlled 2-arm cluster single blind trial that will take place for 9 months across 80 care homes in UK.