This rate of death with dementia among the oldest has increased by 36% in just 20 years, underline the researchers, who advocate greater awareness of these diseases, in order to offer as many older adults as possible the opportunity talk regarding it with their family and better plan their end of life in the event of Alzheimer’s disease or simply cognitive decline.
The study: this is the analysis of data recorded in the Medicare files of 3.5 million people, aged over 67, who died between 2004 and 2017:
- in 2004, approximately 35% of files included at least one mention of dementia;
-
in 2017, this rate of files with at least 1 mention of dementia exceeded 47%;
- taking only patients with at least 2 mentions of dementia in their file into account results in a rate of 39% compared to 25% in 2004;
- the largest increase in the rate of people dying with a diagnosis of dementia comes as Medicare encourages hospitals, nursing homes and community practices to mention diagnoses of dementia on their claims;
- at the same time in the United States, the National Plan for the Fight once morest Alzheimer’s Disease was launched, leading to a better awareness of the public but also of caregivers of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.
End-of-life care is also evolving, with this increasing prevalence of dementia: thus the analysis notes:
- a decline in the proportion of deaths that occurred in a hospital bed or in an intensive care bed, or with a feeding tube in the last six months;
- the number of elderly patients who received palliative care increased dramatically, from 36% of end-of-life patients to nearly 63%. An increase in access to palliative care since the end of the 2010s, which clearly illustrates a positive evolution in end-of-life care.
“Much more needs to be done to proactively address end-of-life care preferences with people newly diagnosed with dementia, and their families,” writes lead author Dr. Julie Bynum, professor of geriatric medicine at Michigan Medicine.
“Where the problem was once underdiagnosed, we can now focus on how we use these dementia diagnosis rates at all stages of the care journey.”
