Jump to comment:
- Page navigation anchor for RE: Response to “Ensuring Canada’s first dementia strategy is not shelved and forgotten” – worse is yet to come if we do not act.RE: Response to “Ensuring Canada’s first dementia strategy is not shelved and forgotten” – worse is yet to come if we do not act.
In their CMAJ Editorial, Drs. Stall, Tardif and Sinha presciently highlighted that the $50-million funding over 5 years will likely prove inadequate to achieve the stated goals of Canada’s first national dementia strategy.1 This has proven true at the front lines of clinical care. As a clinician providing hospital care for persons with dementia I have been unable to detect any meaningful improvements – rather, things are getting worse, especially in acute care.
CIHI analyses demonstrates that when seniors living with dementia are admitted to hospital they are 50% more likely to experience hospital harm and have twice the length of stay of seniors without dementia. While dementia once accounted for 1/3 of alternate-level-of-care (ALC) days, CIHI estimates that this impact has grown and that dementia now accounts for almost ½ of ALC days (see https://www.cihi.ca/en/dementia-in-canada/dementia-care-across-the-healt... ).2 Dementia has become a major contributor to ALC and hospital overcrowding – a fact that has not received appropriate attention to date. All Canadian citizens are paying the price for this neglect in the form of decreased access to hospital beds. This will predictably hamper post-pandemic efforts to address the growing wait lists for elective surgeries.
This situation is guaranteed to worsen if we do not act. The pressure exerte...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: Dr. Molnar is a specialist in Geriatric Medicine with decades of experience caring for persons with dementia in hospital and in the community.References
- Nathan M. Stall, Pauline Tardif, Samir K. Sinha. Ensuring Canada’s first dementia strategy is not shelved and forgotten. CMAJ 2019;191:E851-E852.
- Canadian Institute for Health Information. Dementia in Canada. Ottawa, ON: CIHI; 2018. ( https://www.cihi.ca/en/dementia-in-canada/dementia-care-across-the-health-system/dementia-in-hospitals ).
- OECD (2021), Hospital beds (indicator). doi: 10.1787/0191328e-en. (see https://data.oecd.org/healtheqt/hospital-beds.htm ).
- Molnar FJ. Hospitals’ “failing to plan for dementia is planning to fail”: All Canadian hospitals must launch acute care dementia strategies if they are serious about decreasing hospital overcrowding, decreasing Alternate Level of Care (ALC), and
- [continued from reference 4 above] ....thereby increasing hospital capacity to permit pandemic recovery and to meet future escalating needs. CGS Journal of CME. Special Edition (Editorial) June 2021). www.hospitaldementiacare.ca .