[Results of and issues with a nation-wide survey of an additional system for patients with suspected or diagnosed dementia during hospitalization for physical illness].

Aim: The dementia support team (DST) is an initiative established based on the knowledge that, when individuals with dementia or older people at risk for delirium are hospitalized because of physical illnesses, there are often cases in which their cognitive symptoms rapidly deteriorate. However, the activities of each hospital are unknown. Therefore, a nation-wide survey of DSTs was conducted.

Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted among 1,032 hospitals throughout Japan.

Results: A total of 422 responses were obtained, of which 292 were valid. The main results were as follows: number of beds (200 to <500 beds, n=171), number of types of medical staff (≥4 types, n=248), number of patients for intervention/month (30 patients to <100 patients, n=164), number of team meetings/week (1/week, n=240), cognitive function assessment (Hasegawa Dementia Scale Revised [HDS-R], n=141), advice regarding medication (n=279), rehabilitation (n=243), reduction of physical restraint (n=274), nutrition (n=200) and discharge adjustment (n=233). Patients were divided into 2 groups for analyses: those requested by the other divisions (n=121; 41.4%) and those managed by DST (n=171; 58.6%). There was a higher rate of requested by the other divisions than the managed by the DST related advice for medications and rehabilitation. However, the differences were not statistically significant.

Conclusions: The present study revealed that requests from other divisions involved a higher rate of advice on medication and rehabilitation than the managed by the DST. Further studies are required to confirm this hypothesis.