This scoping review examines the literature on care transition interventions for patients with cognitive impairment receiving ED care and what measures of quality transitions are important for older
adults with impaired cognition and their care partners
This scoping review demonstrates the state of research on ED care
practices for PLWDs. This review demonstrates that studies of components of ED care and emergency care needs for PLWDs are wide ranging with little depth on any topic.
Communication factors that influence satisfaction with the hospital experience for PLWD included valuing of the person through staff actions, interactions, and person-centered care; activities of empowerment; and interactions of the environment with patient well-being (physical environment, social and organizational). Robust communication between hospital staff, PLWD and their care partners improves the hospital experience.
Over the last 2 decades, there have been multiple studies evaluating ED detection of cognitive impairment specifically focused on
dementia. Our scoping review identified more than 45 manuscripts
addressing accuracy of detection of cognitive impairment or dementia, 66 addressing pragmatic and practical ways for this detection, and
21 manuscripts overlapping in both.
In an aging world, the emergency department (ED) is the front porch of the 21st century health care system, straddling the inpatient world of medical and surgical practice with the outpatient environment of office visits, home health, and long-term care.1 Geriatric emergency medicine has emerged as a subspecialty within emergency medicine with a focus on the large and rapidly growing segment of ED patients with unique health care and social service needs: older adults. Geriatric emergency medicine, and the associated geriatric EDs take a more holistic approach to emergency care that revolves around the identification of common age-related syndromes and evidence-based approaches to align management recommendations with patient preferences and patient-reported outcomes that matter.
