Staff Perspectives on Interventions for Confabulation in Brain Injury and Dementia

Providing inaccurate narratives of events (confabulation) is a commonly reported difficulty for people with brain injuries and dementia. We aimed to capture staff perceptions on the frequency and cause of confabulation, as well as interventions they find acceptable and effective.

We surveyed staff in dementia and brain injury services using convenience sampling. We developed a bespoke survey capturing staff views on confabulation prevalence, context, causes, the acceptability and effectiveness of interventions, and staff demographics such as education and experience.

The survey was completed by direct care staff, nurses and allied health professionals supporting people with dementia (n = 46) and people with brain injuries (n = 40). Application of χ² tests showed that staff in dementia care reported interventions to be less effective and 'playing along' as more acceptable than did staff working with clients who had brain injury. Approximately 20% of each group were not confident in addressing confabulation. Dementia staff witnessed more confabulation about who and where the confabulating person was, and brain injury staff witnessed more confabulation about why the confabulating person was receiving care.

Our findings showed that there is a difference between how staff in brain injury and dementia services perceive the effectiveness and acceptability of interventions for confabulation. Findings suggest that capturing practice-generated knowledge might lead to further empirical demonstrations of effective interventions for confabulation and that there is a need for more support and training of direct care staff in managing confabulation.