Centre for Policy on Ageing



Prevalence of cognitive impairment in the hospitalized elderly
Author(s)	Ann Hickey, D Clinch, E P Groarke
Journal title	International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 12, no 1, January 1997
Pages	pp 27-33
Keywords	Cognitive impairment ; Dementia ; In-patients ; Hospital services ; Evaluation ; Social surveys ; Ireland.
Annotation	This study in Limerick, Ireland, used the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) to assess the extent to which patients with dementing disorders used hospital facilities other than those in psychiatric wards. As mental performance can be impaired by acute illness, methods were used to avoid such patients being wrongly labelled as suffering from dementia. In the acute hospital, 22.3% of patients, mainly in medical wards, had significant cognitive impairment. On acute medical wards, 31% of older patients had significant impairment compared to only 7.3% on the surgical wards. In the orthopaedic unit, 15.8% of older patients had evidence of cognitive impairment. In hospitals specialising in care of the old, the proportion was 70.6%; of these 46% were severely impaired. Absence of specialised dementia services for older people means that medical beds in the acute and long-stay sector will be used for these patients more than their medical needs might otherwise require.
Accession Number	CPA-970807203 A
Classmark	E4: EA: LF7: LD: 4C: 3F: 763
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.