Summary
Data on 900 patients, taken from the Irish and Northern Irish audits of dementia care, was analysed to determine whether admission to a specialist geriatric medicine ward yielded improvements to acute care for patients with dementia.
It was found that these specialist wards tend to have a more streamlined discharge planning and better documentation of decisions regarding resuscitation, but they appear to perform less well in other aspects of care, including poorer compliance with multidisciplinary assessment and antipsychotic prescribing.
Full Text Link (Note: This article requires a suitable Athens password, a journal subscription or payment for access).
Reference
Briggs, R. O’Shea, E. [and] de Siún, A. [et al] (2017). Does admission to a specialist geriatric medicine ward lead to improvements in aspects of acute medical care for older patients with dementia? International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. June 2017; 32(6): 624-632.
