Place of death of older persons with dementia: a study in five European Countries5
| Aim: To compare where people with dementia died across five European countries; Belgium, the Netherlands, England, Wales and Scotland | |||||||
| Methods: Death registry data on all deaths in 2003 of people aged 65 and older were obtained for the five countries, and then linked to area-level data on the number of hospital beds and nursing home beds per 1000 of the population aged over 65 | |||||||
| Results: Home death was rare (3–5%) apart from in Belgium (11%). Death in hospital was higher in the UK (England 36.0%; Wales 46.3%; Scotland 33.9%) and Belgium (22.7%). In all countries the majority of dementia patients died in long-term care facilities. The Netherlands had the lowest rate of hospital deaths (2.8%) and the highest rate of nursing home deaths (92.3%) | |||||||
| Belgium | The Netherlands | England | Wales | Scotland | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health resource | Hospital beds/1000 | 5.57 | 3.67 | 3.05 | 3.95 | 4.62 | 3.52 |
| Nursing home beds/1000 | 4.54 | 10.75 | 8.37 | 4.18 | 7.82 | 8.24 | |
| Place of death % | Home | 11.4 | 3.8 | 3.7 | 3.2 | 5.0 | 4.5 |
| Hospital | 22.7 | 2.8 | 36.0 | 46.3 | 33.9 | 27.4 | |
| Nursing home | 65.9 | 92.3 | 59.7 | 50.2 | 60.8 | 67.5 | |
| Hospice or other SPC | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 0.3 | |
| Implications of this research: The study suggests that the Dutch model of nursing home provision, characterised by good availability of long-term care facilities with specialist nursing and physician care, could be advantageous for reducing hospital deaths in dementia patients | |||||||