New technology
carers experience stress or anxiety several times a week, and nearly 80 per cent find it difficult to talk about the emotional toll. Burnout is not a distant risk; it is the lived reality of many frontline carers and family members. The impact stretches beyond the human
story. For care homes, distressed behaviours lead to incident reports, safeguarding investigations, and escalating staffing costs. With up to 30 per cent of care staff leaving their roles each year, recruitment and onboarding costs alone reach into billions across the sector. Agency staff are often drafted in to cover, adding further expense, and leaving residents cared for by unfamiliar faces. Some homes spend in excess of £1m per year on agency staff. Meanwhile, families lose confidence when their loved ones become heavily medicated, frequently restrained, or appear unsupported. In some cases, families face the devastating threat of eviction as a result of distressed behaviours being unsupported. Dissatisfaction can result in reputational harm to the care homes, and an increased risk of complaints, and even lost placements for care homes. In too many cases, medication remains
the default response. Antipsychotics for behavioural issues are continuously overprescribed despite clear guidance about their risks, as well as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE, 2018) guidelines recommending behavioural support as a first port of call. Their continued use reflects a system focused on compliance and risk management rather than on understanding behaviour and meeting individualised needs. This reactive approach misses vital opportunities to nurture and identify the signal the behaviour is sending to understand unmet needs before they escalate. Without the tools to translate those signals, staff are left firefighting reactively rather than proactively preventing crises.
The result is a cycle that hurts everyone
involved. Residents endure avoidable distress, carers lose morale and leave, families lose trust, and the care system absorbs the ever-growing costs. This matters, and the scenario is not inevitable. With the right insights and behavioural support, many behaviours can be predicted, understood, and even prevented. What has been missing in care so far are proactive, science-based tools to make that possible at a large scale. Tools that put dignity back at the centre of dementia care.
A behavioural science perspective Every action has a reason behind it. It is not random. In dementia care, what might look like aggression, shouting, or sudden withdrawal is almost always a form of communication. A person might be in pain, overwhelmed, or simply trying to express a need they can no longer put into words. The role of a behaviour analyst is to translate those behaviours so carers and families can understand what is really being communicated, and enable them to respond effectively. As there are only around 80 behaviour
analysts in the world who specialise in dementia care, this scarcity means that most families, and even most care homes, never have access to this kind of expertise. Without it, staff are often left on their own, relying on trial and error or medication because they do not have the tools to interpret what the behaviour is really about. A behaviour analyst looks for patterns: what happened just before the behaviour,
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www.thecarehomeenvironment.com October 2025
what the person was trying to achieve or avoid, and what response followed. When these sequences are studied up close, the behaviour stops seeming random. It starts to make sense. And once it makes sense, we can act early to prevent distress, reduce risk, and restore dignity. With the right knowledge, a carer who
once felt helpless in the face of aggression can spot early warning signs, adapt their approach, and prevent a crisis before it happens. That is the power of bringing behavioural science into everyday care: turning confusion into clarity, and distress into comfort.
Where technology meets humanity With only a handful of behaviour specialists worldwide focusing on dementia, most carers will never have access to this kind of expertise. The science exists, but it is not reaching the frontline. This is the gap that technology can fill, and it is a gap we can no longer afford to ignore. AI is often talked about in terms of
automation or efficiency, but in dementia care its greatest potential is human. By learning from patterns in daily life, AI can support carers in the same way a specialist would: noticing the small signals that distress may be building, and turning them into simple, timely suggestions. It does not replace the carer’s judgement – it enhances it, offering extra eyes and insights that are always present, even when staff are stretched thin. Imagine a tool that acts like a quiet guide
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