A descriptive survey of acute bed usage for dementia care in old age psychiatry
✍ Scribed by Peter Neville; Ann Boyle; Sarah Baillon
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 198 KB
- Volume
- 14
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0885-6230
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Objective. To examine the reasons why patients are admitted to acute dementia care assessment beds in one large district health authority (Leicestershire).
Design. A prospective questionnaire was completed by the RMO for every admission to dementia care assessment beds over a 6-month survey period.
Results. The most common reasons for admission were behavioural problems (most frequently aggression). Other common reasons included self-neglect, psychotic symptoms and comorbidity with functional psychiatric illness. Classi®cation of patients by their social circumstances before admission indicated dierent patterns of presenting features, length of stay and place of discharge.
Conclusions. The need for acute beds is demonstrated by the large number of emergencies, with a signi®cant proportion admitted under the Mental Health Act, the type and complexity of reasons for admission and the preceding involvement of community mental health services. Multi-axial classi®cations including presenting problems and social circumstances, rather than the traditional method of looking purely at diagnosis, may oer some advantage in assessing outcomes.