PhD Students Wang and Ni, Medical Instructor Xu and MSN Alumna Bunn Publish Article in Geriatric Nursing

Jing Wang, PhD student; Zhao Ni, PhD student; Melanie Bunn, MSN '93; and Hanzhang Xu, medical instructor; recently published an article entitled "Working together to learn new oral hygiene techniques: Pilot of a carepartner-assisted intervention for persons with cognitive impairment" in Geriatric Nursing. Co-authors include Ruth Anderson, of UNC School of Nursing; Brenda Plassman, of Duke University School of Medicine; Kathleen Nye, of Duke University School of Medicine; Patricia Poole, of UNC School of Dentistry; Connor Drake, of UNC School of Public Health; and Bei Wu, of New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing.

Abstract

We pilot tested a carepartner-assisted intervention to improve oral hygiene in persons with cognitive impairment (participants) and help carepartners become leaders who can adapt approaches that foster participants’ ability to develop new skills for oral hygiene care. Following the intervention, we conducted interviews with participants and carepartners to understand their challenges in working together to learn new oral hygiene skills. Participants reported challenges such as frustration using the electric toothbrush correctly, lack of desire to change, uncertainty about correctness of technique, and difficulty sustaining two minutes of toothbrushing. Carepartners reported challenges such as learning a new way of toothbrushing, learning new communication techniques, switching from instructing to working together, learning to balance leading with being too bossy, and being mindful of word choices. Findings suggested that despite challenges, participants were able to learn adaptive strategies to support new oral hygiene behaviors with support of the carepartner as the adaptive leader.