Excess Mortality Among Assisted Living Residents With Dementia During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Cassandra L Hua, Portia Y Cornell, Sheryl Zimmerman and 2 others
PMID 36065095WHAT IT FOUND
During the pandemic, assisted living residents with dementia had 34.3 more weekly deaths per 100,000 than residents without dementia.
Memory care status showed no clear mortality difference.
Key findings
01During the pandemic, assisted living residents with dementia had 34.3 more deaths per 100,000 per week than residents without dementia; adjusted excess was 33.4 per 100,000 per week.
02All assisted living residents had excess weekly mortality in the pandemic period: 47.9 per 100,000 unadjusted and 49.1 per 100,000 adjusted.
03Memory care residents with dementia had 3.1 fewer excess deaths per 100,000 than dementia residents in general assisted living, and adjusted difference was 5.0 fewer; neither was a clear difference.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study used administrative records, not clinical assessments, so dementia diagnosis may be missed or miscoded. Memory care was defined by state licensure, designation, or certification, and in some states that may apply to only a unit or wing, so some residents were classified incorrectly. The analysis excluded residents in assisted living communities with fewer than 25 beds and residents enrolled in Medicare Advantage, so it does not cover all assisted living residents. Minnesota and Connecticut were excluded because of different licensing structures, and 18 states lacked memory care licensure information, limiting generalisability. County-level adjustment may not capture smaller local differences in pandemic spread.
Declared interests
No author conflict-of-interest declaration is included in the supplied text. The article is tagged as supported by NIH extramural research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that memory care communities protected residents from pandemic mortality. The unadjusted difference was 3.1 fewer excess deaths per 100,000 and the adjusted difference was 5.0 fewer, but neither was a clear difference.