Abstract
People with dementia (PwD) occupy around 25% of the hospital beds. Once PwD are admitted to hospitals, their cognitive impairment is not considered in most of the cases. Thus, it causes an impact on the development of the disease becoming a stressful situation as care plans are not adapted to PwD. The aim of this study was to explore the published core elements when designing a dementia care pathway for hospital settings. A scoping review was conducted to provide an overview of the available research evidence and identify the knowledge gaps regarding the topic. This review highlights person-centered care, compassionate care and end-of-life process as some of the key elements that should integrate the framework when designing a dementia care pathway. Architectonical outdoor and indoor hospital elements have also been found to be considered when adapting the healthcare context to PwD. Findings provide information about the key points to focus on to successfully design dementia interventions in hospital environments within available resources, mostly in those contexts in which national dementia plans are in its infancy. Hospitals should transform their patients’ routes and processes considering the increasing demographic changes of people with cognitive impairment.
Highlights
Most of the published literature about clinical pathways are focused on the medical approach of diagnosis and treatment [27,28,29] while others are focused on the statistical impact of dementia in health economics [13,30]
One of the most important issues about People with dementia (PwD) admission to clinical settings is the length of stay in hospitalization, as it is directly related with unintentional harmful events
Available resources may be different in order to perform the best care possible that directly depends on the level of professional health care training, settings, available resources, ratios patient per healthcare staff, awareness about dementia, and government support
Summary
Dementia population data predictions will continue to increase in the decades. The International Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 75.6 million people will live with dementia in 2030, reaching 135.5 million in 2050 [1]. The world economic impact of neurodegenerative diseases in 2020 was estimated in more than 1.2 trillion US dollars corresponding to the 80% of such investments to Europe and North America [2]. Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias represent the highest percentage of neurodegenerative diseases [3]. Consistent with this, several healthcare systems worldwide have implemented specific Dementia National Plans [4] for years, while countries such as Spain, among other
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