Madness and mayhem: the place of people with dementia in a mental health setting.

Abstract

Demographic predictions indicate that there will be between 174,300 and 194,200 people in Australia experiencing dementia of the Alzheimer's type by the year 2006. At present, 60% of those who make up the resident population in nursing homes and aged-care units in psychiatric hospitals suffer from dementia. To explore the place of people with dementia in a mental health setting, a comprehensive review of the literature was undertaken and the results compared with the outcomes of an ethnographic study of a unit for confused older people.