Cognitive impairment, psychiatric disorders, and problematic behaviors in a tribal nursing home

Residents' cognitive, psychiatric, and behavioral statuses were examined as part of a larger study of care in a nursing home (NH) owned and operated by a Northern Plains American Indian tribe.

Reviews of 45 medical records and semistructured interviews with 36 staff were completed.

Creekside residents had considerable psychiatric and behavioral morbidity. High prevalences of non-Alzheimer's disease dementia, cognitive impairment, anxious symptomatology, and resistance to care were met with psychopharmacotherapy, reorientation, and informal techniques for behavior management. Significant depressive, anxious, psychotic, and behavioral symptoms remained. Staff interpretations of resident problems consisted of an ethnopsychological schema emphasizing resident loneliness, grumpiness, and propensity to "fight" rather than formal psychiatric nosology.

Tribal NH residents were likely underdiagnosed for dementia and anxiety. Residual behavioral and psychiatric symptomatology suggest room for improvement in the NH's behavioral management regimen. Need for greater attention to conceptual, diagnostic, clinical, and documentation processes in the NH setting is noted.