失智症者生活品質測量之相關議題

Issues Related to Quality of Life Measures for Persons With Dementia

隨著人口不斷老化與失智症盛行率快速增加的趨勢，失智症照護管理與品質控制已被已開發國家列為優先考量的公共健康議題。失智症是一種漸進退化性疾病，在無法治癒的狀況下，維持、改善與極大化病人的生活品質漸成為照護的主要目標。雖然生活品質是醫療照護服務成果的重要指標，可作為健康經濟決策的依據，但因認知退化的疾病特性，使得失智症者的生活品質測量在概念及方法學上仍存有諸多挑戰與爭議。本文將就現有的爭辯議題進行討論並提出建議，供作後續失智患者生活品質監測及相關研究之參考。

The rising population of elderly worldwide has led to an increasing number of people with dementia. Managing and providing quality care for people with dementia has thus become a priority public health issue in developed countries. Dementia is a gradually degenerative disease. In the absence of a cure, improving, maintaining or maximizing quality of life is becoming the primary goal of nursing care for patients with this disease. Quality of life is an important outcome index of medical care and can be a criterion for making health economics decisions. The fact that dementia is a disease that presents steadily declining cognitive function has led to numerous challenges and debates regarding the optimal concepts and methodologies to be used to measure quality of life in those with dementia. This paper reviews relevant debates on these issues and makes suggestions that may serve as guides to monitoring / studying quality of life in dementia patients.