This review summarizes studies on the natural history of dementia with a focus on Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. Understanding the course of dementia is important not only for patients, caregivers, and health professionals, but also for health policy-makers, who have to plan for national resources needed in the management of an increasing number of dementia cases. From the available published data, the life expectancy of elderly people with dementia is shorter than that of non-demented elderly. Reports on survival after a diagnosis of dementia vary from 3 to 12 years. The wide variation is partly due to the diagnostic criteria used in the studies and the sites where they were conducted (i.e. hospitals, clinics, or homes). There is an apparent difference in survival between Alzheimer's disease patients with onset of illness before 75 years and those after 75 years: the younger patients have a longer life expectancy. However, there are conflicting data on survival (in years) comparing male and female patients and comparing patients of different ethnicities. For vascular dementia, published papers on life expectancy vary between 3 to 5 years. Vascular dementia appears to have a poorer prognosis than Alzheimer's disease. The stages of severity of dementia were compared in a follow-up of a sample of Alzheimer's disease patients in Singapore, and the mean duration of the mild phase (clinical dementia rating 1) was 5.6 years, the moderate phase (clinical dementia rating 2) was 3.5 years, and the severe phase (clinical dementia rating 3) was 3.2 years. At the various phases of the disease, the demand on health-care services and economic cost are different.
Abstract-Stroke affects many aspects of the lives of stroke survivors and their family caregivers. Supporting long-term recovery and rehabilitation are necessary to help stroke survivors adapt to living with the effects of stroke and to help family members adapt to the caregiving role. During recovery and rehabilitation, many elements of the health care continuum are utilized, including emergency response, acute care, inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, and community and long-term care. With the advent of thrombolytic therapy and the benefits of stroke units, stroke survival and outcomes are improving. As a result, the current emphasis of stroke system improvement is to implement stroke units throughout the developed world. To enhance the patient centeredness of stroke care delivery, an important next phase of stroke system improvement will center on the experiences of stroke survivors and their family caregivers as they move through diverse care environments. The objective of this article was to conduct a scoping review of the literature on stroke transitions to identify the current areas of research emphasis. This article highlights stroke survivors' and family caregivers' experiences with transitions across care environment and some potential strategies to improve those transitions.
Objectives Population ageing impacts many areas of society from health and social care cost to housing and future workforce, and whole-of-society approach is required to promote healthy ageing. The Decade of Healthy Ageing report has called upon multi-sectoral collaboration to promote age-friendly communities. The Healthy Ageing Promotion Program for You (HAPPY) is a community-based dual-task exercise program for older adults led by health coaches (HC) or trained volunteers (HAPPY leaders) to promote healthy ageing. The primary objective was to observe improvement in cognition. The secondary objective was to observe improvement in frailty status, functional status, perceived health and reduction of social isolation. We also aim to evaluate the effectiveness and describe the implementation of the HAPPY program. Design To engage older adults with prefrailty, frailty and/or cognitive impairment in dual-task exercise program. Recruitment and publicity were through country-wide multisectoral collaboration. Setting Community setting Participants More than 700 older adults participated in ≥ 50 different sites including senior activity centres. Five hundred and sixty-nine participants attended phase 1 screening. Pre-frail or frail ambulant participants or those with underlying cognitive impairment were invited to participate in phase 2 screening. Among them 296 participants enrolled in phase 2 with 66.6% follow up rate at 3 months. Measurements Phase 1 and 2 screening consisted of screening for frailty (FRAIL), cognition (Montreal Cognitive Assessment [MoCA]), falls, vision, grip strength, perceived health (EuroQol vertical visual analogue scale), depression (geriatric depression scale), social network (6-item Lubben Social Network Scale), gait speed and physical function (Short physical performance battery [SPPB]). Results HC led 61.7% of the participants, and HAPPY was conducted twice weekly for 64% of the participants. There was significant improvement in the MoCA scores both in the HC and HAPPY leaders’ led groups. Overall physical function, chair-stand and balance domain improved significantly especially in the groups led by HC and those participating in twice-weekly exercises. There was significant improvement in perceived health, reduction in social isolation, improvement in frailty status and reduction of falls at 3 months. Conclusion Community embedded peer-led program to promote healthy ageing like HAPPY can improve cognition, physical function, and frailty status, reduce social isolation, and improve perceived health. It takes a “village” to promote healthy ageing, and the need to have a life course approach to healthy longevity which must involve local government and ministerial organisations, non-profit organisations, industries, academia, and community to redesign health.
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