Gap in health care for Alzheimer's disease patients who live alone
The patients who live alone do not receive the same extent of diagnostic investigations and anti-dementia treatment as those who are co-habiting. On the other hand, they were treated more frequently with antidepressants, antipsychotics and sedative drugs. According to recent statistics, the number of older people who live alone in their homes, especially women, is increasing in high income countries. When an older person is affected by dementia, such as Alzheimer´s disease, they may not have a close relative living with them, which may complicate the course of the disease. Dementia affects their memory and later can lead to their dependency on caregivers. Investigators at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden studied 26,000 patients with Alzheimer´s disease registered in the Swedish Dementia Registry (SveDem), a nationwide quality register on patients affected by dementia. Owing to the size of the study sample and detailed information received from Th...