==== Front
Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2763
igaa057.2763
Abstracts
Session 7100 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Occupational Therapy for People Living With Dementia in the Community: Workforce Development Opportunities
Lepore Michael 1 Long Erin 2 Weiss Joan 3 1 
LiveWell Alliance, Southington, Connecticut, United States
2 
Administration for Community Living, Washington, District of Columbia, United States
3 
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Washington, District of Columbia, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”765 765
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Establishing a workforce capable of delivering evidence- and team-based HCBS for the growing population impacted by dementia is of growing public health importance. Occupational therapy (OT), in collaboration with other disciplines, offers promise for supporting people with dementia to live well at home. However, neither uptake of team-based programs for people with dementia nor availability of providers who work in teams to support people with dementia are well understood. We reviewed information from three federal programs to improve understanding of team-based workforce development needs and opportunities. Findings indicate that interprofessional evidence-based interventions for people with dementia are increasingly implemented but geographically limited and development of the OT workforce’s dementia capability is nascent in interprofessional/interdisciplinary training. OT is a key profession delivering evidence-based HCBS for people with dementia, but substantial opportunity exists for workforce development, including education, training, financing, recruitment, retention, care coordination, and translation and implementation of effective care.