Living Unnoticed: Cognitive Impairment in Older People with Multimorbidity

Characteristics and Real-Life Outcomes of Dementia and Cognitive Impairment at a Geriatric Clinic

BACKGROUND

Various patterns of dementia care have been developed in different settings, depending on the availability of healthcare resources and facilities. The purpose of this study was to examine the epidemiology and characteristics of dementia care at a geriatric clinic, a field that has been subject to little prior evaluation.

METHODS

A retrospective chart review was undertaken of cohort patients with cognitive impairment who had received a diagnosis and were still on active follow-up at a geriatric clinic. A total of 892 patients were included. In addition, 203 geriatric patients with no cognitive impairment who attended the clinic during the study period were sampled as a control.

RESULTS

The main diagnoses of dementia were Alzheimer's disease (AD) (40.1%), vascular dementia (16.9%), unspecified dementia (16.3%), mixed dementia (9.0%), AD with cerebrovascular disease (8.7%), and Parkinson's disease dementia (6.1%). Atypical dementia was presented in 3.0% of cases. There were 178 patients with mild cognitive impairment, 20 with vascular cognitive impairment, and 18 with subjective cognitive decline. Other comorbidities were found in 97% of the subjects. Patients with cognitive impairment had a higher total number of other geriatric syndromes and higher percentages for delirium, falls, immobility, loss of appetite, and incontinence. Potentially reversible causes of dementia were found in 11.3% of the cases. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors were administered to 61%, whereas 23.5% received an NMDA receptor antagonist. The need for a change in the antidementia medication was identified for 10.7% of the subjects; the major cause was adverse drug side effects. Nonpharmacological therapy only was administered to 52.4% of the people with dementia who had behavioral and psychological symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

Mixed brain pathologies, comorbidities, and the coexistence of other geriatric syndromes are common at geriatric clinics. Holistic, integrated, and continuous care are needed to improve the outcomes of patients with more complicated comorbidities.

Implementing and validating a care protocol for older adults with cancer in resource limited settings with a newly developed screening tool

BACKGROUND

Cancer in the aging population presents manifold challenges. In the resource-limited settings of developing countries, concrete steps to optimize care for older adults with cancer are required.

MATERIALS AND METHOD

This prospective, observational study was divided in two parts. In the first part, older adults (≥60 years) with a tissue diagnosis of cancer underwent a preliminary, detailed assessment of relevant geriatric domains. The patients were followed up at 4, 12 and 24 weeks, and their survival status was recorded. In the second part a newly developed screening tool, "SCreening of the Older PErson with Cancer", Version1 (SCOPE-C) was validated on patients with similar characteristics.

RESULTS

419 participants were enrolled in the study. The mean age of the participants was 66.6 ± 6.2 years, 75% had functional impairment, 35% had malnutrition, and 64% had more than one co-morbidity. The median survival time was 22 weeks from the index visit. Male gender, functional decline, cognitive impairment, malnutrition, and treatment modality were found to be independently associated with survival. Individual Scores on the SCOPE-C Version1 scale were correlated with survival status at 24 weeks, and a cutoff score of 64 had a 72.2% sensitivity and 77.3% specificity for better prognosis.

CONCLUSION

The present study is a comprehensive attempt to assess older adults with cancer with limited resources in a busy health system. A preliminary assessment with a prognostic screening tool may streamline care in resource-limited settings and aid clinicians in making treatment decisions.

Multimorbidity and functional impairment-bidirectional interplay, synergistic effects and common pathways

This review discusses the interplay between multimorbidity (i.e. co-occurrence of more than one chronic health condition in an individual) and functional impairment (i.e. limitations in mobility, strength or cognition that may eventually hamper a person's ability to perform everyday tasks). On the one hand, diseases belonging to common patterns of multimorbidity may interact, curtailing compensatory mechanisms and resulting in physical and cognitive decline. On the other hand, physical and cognitive impairment impact the severity and burden of multimorbidity, contributing to the establishment of a vicious circle. The circle may be further exacerbated by people's reduced ability to cope with treatment and care burden and physicians' fragmented view of health problems, which cause suboptimal use of health services and reduced quality of life and survival. Thus, the synergistic effects of medical diagnoses and functional status in adults, particularly older adults, emerge as central to assessing their health and care needs. Furthermore, common pathways seem to underlie multimorbidity, functional impairment and their interplay. For example, older age, obesity, involuntary weight loss and sedentarism can accelerate damage accumulation in organs and physiological systems by fostering inflammatory status. Inappropriate use or overuse of specific medications and drug-drug and drug-disease interactions also contribute to the bidirectional association between multimorbidity and functional impairment. Additionally, psychosocial factors such as low socioeconomic status and the direct or indirect effects of negative life events, weak social networks and an external locus of control may underlie the complex interactions between multimorbidity, functional decline and negative outcomes. Identifying modifiable risk factors and pathways common to multimorbidity and functional impairment could aid in the design of interventions to delay, prevent or alleviate age-related health deterioration; this review provides an overview of knowledge gaps and future directions.

Is care based on comprehensive geriatric assessment with mobile teams better than usual care? A study protocol of a randomised controlled trial (The GerMoT study)

INTRODUCTION

Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) is a multidimensional, interdisciplinary diagnostic process used to determine the medical, psychological and functional capabilities of frail older people. The primary aim of our current study is to confirm whether CGA-based outpatient care is superior than usual care in terms of health-related outcomes, resource use and costs.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

The Geriatric Mobile Team trial is designed as a single-centre randomised, controlled, assessor-blinded (at baseline) trial. All participants will be identified via local healthcare registries with the following inclusion criteria: age ≥75 years, ≥3 different diagnoses and ≥3 visits to the emergency care unit (with or without admittance to hospital) during the past 18 months. Nursing home residency will be an exclusion criterion. Baseline assessments will be done before the 1:1 randomisation. Participants in the intervention group will, after an initial CGA, have access to care given by a geriatric team in addition to usual care. The control group receives usual care only. The primary outcome is the total number of inpatient days during the follow-up period. Assessments of the outcomes: mortality, quality of life, health care use, physical functional level, frailty, dependence and cognition will be performed 12 and 24 months after inclusion. Both descriptive and analytical statistics will be used, in order to compare groups and for analyses of outcomes over time including changes therein. The primary outcome will be analysed using analysis of variance, including in-transformed values if needed to achieve normal distribution of the residuals.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Ethical approval has been obtained and the results will be disseminated in national and international journals and to health care leaders and stakeholders. Protocol amendments will be published in ClinicalTrials.gov as amendments to the initial registration NCT02923843. In case of success, the study will promote the implementation of CGA in outpatient care settings and thereby contribute to an improved care of older people with multimorbidity through dissemination of the results through scientific articles, information to politicians and to the public.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

NCT02923843; Pre-results.

Donepezil may reduce the risk of comorbidities in patients with Alzheimer's disease: A large-scale matched case-control analysis in Japan

Introduction

Few studies have focused on the association between donepezil and physical comorbid conditions in Alzheimer's disease patients.

Methods

We investigated the association between donepezil prescription and the occurrences of comorbidities in Alzheimer's disease patients, by using an electronic medical records database which contains case-based information on approximately three million patients from more than 60 hospitals across Japan.

Results

Nine thousand seven hundred forty-nine patients had at least one diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease between 2001 and 2015. To test the robustness of the results, we used a risk set sampling method, and the matched cohorts based on age, sex, comorbidity level, and duration of illness consisted of 1406 cases and an equal number of controls. From the multivariate logistic regression analysis adjusted for covariance, less occurrence of physical comorbidities was associated with donepezil prescription in the matched cohort.

Discussion

Although the mechanisms are unknown, donepezil may have positive effects on both cognition and physical status.

Delivering tailored surgery to older cancer patients: Preoperative geriatric assessment domains and screening tools - A systematic review of systematic reviews

The onco-geriatric population is increasing and thus more and more elderly will require surgery; an important treatment modality for many cancer types. This population's heterogeneity demands preoperative risk stratification, which has led to the introduction of Geriatric Assessment (GA) and associated screening tools in surgical oncology. Many reviews have investigated the use of GA in onco-geriatric patients. Discrepancies in outcomes between studies currently hamper the implementation of a preoperative GA in clinical practice. A systematic review of systematic reviews was performed in order to investigate assessment tools of the most commonly included GA domains and their predictive ability regarding the adverse postoperative outcomes. All domains - except polypharmacy - were, to a varying degree, associated with different adverse postoperative outcomes. Functional status, comorbidity and frailty were assessed most frequently and were most often significant. The association between domain impairments and adverse postoperative outcomes appeared to be greatly influenced by the study population characteristics and selection bias, as well as the type of assessment tool used due to possible ceiling effects and its sensitivity to detect domain impairments. Frailty seems to be the most important predictor, which underpins the importance of an integrated approach. As it is unlikely that one universal GA will fit all, feasibility, based on the time, expertise, and resources available in daily clinical practice as well as the patient population to hand, should be taken into consideration, when tailoring the 'optimal GA'.