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Dementia in a regional hospital setting: contextual challenges and barriers to effective care

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-19, 22:24 authored by Annear, MJ, Peter Lucas
Dementia is a growing public health problem, which may be under-recognised and poorly managed in regional hospitals. With projections of increasing dementia among older adults in regional and rural areas, knowledge about dementia and capacity of professionals to provide best-evidence care is paramount. This research investigates the challenges of dementia care in a publicly funded regional hospital in Australia. The study elucidates prevalence of dementia-related admissions, costs of treatment, length of stay and capacity for dementia care. A mixed methodology was employed in this study, including analysis of hospital records (N = 2405), dementia knowledge surveys (n = 50) and semi-structured interviews with clinical staff (n = 13). Hospital records showed that dementia-related admissions were lower than population prevalence reported in regional Australia. Dementia patients, however, attracted significantly higher treatment costs and greater length of stay than age-matched admissions who did not have a diagnosis of dementia. Clinicians reported several obstacles to effective dementia care, including staff knowledge deficits, environmental challenges, resource constraints and organisational factors.

History

Publication title

International Journal of Ageing and Later Life

Volume

12

Pagination

91-119

ISSN

1652-8670

Department/School

Wicking Dementia Research Education Centre

Publisher

Linkoeping University Electronic Press

Place of publication

Sweden

Rights statement

copyright the Authors 2018. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Health related to ageing

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