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Dementia day care and its effects on symptoms and institutionalization--a controlled Swedish study
A Wimo1, B Mattsson, R Adolfsson
1Primary Health Care Research Unit, Sundsvall, Sweden.
Objective:
To examine the effects of Day Care (DC) on demented patients.
Design:
A prospective non-randomized concurrent-control study.
Participants:
55 demented patients in DC and 44 controls.
Setting:
Sundsvall, an industrial community in northern Sweden.
Main Outcome Measure:
Cognition, ADL-functions, behaviour and institutionalization.
Results:
Measurements of cognition, ADL-functions, and behaviour showed no or only small differences between the groups. After one year, 24% of the patients in the DC-group were institutionalized, compared with 44% of the controls. In the control group, the exhaustion of spouse and supervision need were highly correlated to institutionalization (p < 0.001), while high physical nursing load was correlated to institutionalization in the DC-group (p < 0.01).
Conclusion:
DC postpones institutionalization, probably because of less exhaustion of spouses and decreased supervision need.