Behaviour management

Up to 90% of people with dementia will experience some behavioural or psychological symptoms (BPSD) during the course of the disease. Some examples of these behaviours include: anxiety, delusions, hallucinations, depressed mood, apathy, agitation, aggression, sleep disturbance, wandering, hoarding, resistiveness to care, shadowing, inappropriate language, repetitive questioning or inappropriate toileting.

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The Brodaty seven-tiered model of service delivery is based on severity and prevalence of BPSD, ranging from no dementia through tiers of increasingly severe behavioural disturbance to the propensity for extreme violence in a small number of individuals.

Each tier is associated with a different model of intervention.^[1] Where a patient is experiencing BPSD, refer to services that can provide comprehensive planning and management for preventing BPSD. These services are listed on the next level of the pathway along with the recommended tiers that the particular service can support.