Summaries of Must-Read Clinical Literature, Guidelines, and FDA Actions
Deaths from Alzheimer’s Disease in the US
MMWR; 2017 May 26; Taylor, Greenlund, et al
Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in the US have significantly increased from 1999 through 2004, with the greater number of persons with Alzheimer's dying at home placing an increasing burden on caregivers, a recent study found. State-level and country-level death certificate data from the National Vital Statistics System for the period 1999-2014 were analyzed. Researchers found:
- There was a 54.5% increase in Alzheimer's deaths in the US from 1999 to 2014.
- The percentage of Alzheimer's decedents who died in a medical facility declined from 14.7% in 1999 to 6.6% in 2014.
- Conversely, the percentage of Alzheimer's decedents who died at home increased from 13.9% in 1999 to 24.9% in 2014.
- Counties with the highest age-adjusted rates of Alzheimer's deaths were primarily in the Southeast, plus some additional areas in the Midwest and West.
Taylor CA, Greenlund SF, McGuire LC, Lu H, Croft JB. Deaths from Alzheimer’s disease—United States, 1999–2014. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2017;66:521–526. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6620a1.
This Week's Must Reads
Must Reads in Geriatrics
Site of Death & Patterns of Care in Older Adults, JAMA; ePub 2018 Jun 25; Teno, Gozalo, et al
Psychological Interventions & Chronic Pain Reduction, JAMA Intern Med; ePub 2018 May 7; Niknejad, et al
Home-Based Exercise & Walking Performance in PAD, JAMA; 2018 Apr 24; McDermott, Spring, et al
USPSTF Recommendation on Falls Prevention, JAMA; ePub 2018 Apr 17; US Preventive Services Task Force
Guidelines for Geriatric Diabetes Care, J Am Board Fam Med; 2018 Mar-Apr; McCreedy, et al
Alzheimer's disease, with its steadily progressive loss of ability to think and function, is devastating for both patients and families. This study documents what all of us who care for older patients know: although we have gotten better at treating other causes of mortality, the incidence of patients developing, living with, and dying from dementia has increased. This increase places an immense burden on families, particularly as the care of patients with end-stage Alzheimer's has increasingly shifted toward home care, with the number of patients who have died at home almost doubling. Given the immensity of this shift, it will be important for both health systems as well as individual physicians to think about the ways in which we can educate and support the families of our patients with Alzheimer's disease who live at home and die at home. —Neil Skolnik, MD