Visiting Out-of-Home Places When Living With Dementia: A Cross-Sectional Observational Study: Visiter des lieux hors du domicile lorsque l'on vit avec une démence: étude transversale observationnelle.
Isabel Margot-Cattin, Catherine Ludwig, Nicolas Kühne and 4 others
PMID 33745342WHAT IT FOUND
People with dementia visit fewer places overall, but the loss is uneven.
They retain healthcare, home, and close social visits, yet abandon banks, pharmacies, and cultural venues. This creates specific gaps in daily life that require targeted support rather than general advice to 'go out'.
Key findings
01Participants living with dementia visited significantly fewer places currently (mean 15.83 vs 18.91) and reported more places affected by change (mean 5.80 vs 2.31) than the comparison group.
02The group with dementia abandoned commercial and administrative places like banks and pharmacies at a much higher rate than the comparison group, while retaining healthcare visits and local neighbourhood spaces.
03There was no significant correlation between the number of places visited and perceived occupational gaps within the dementia group, suggesting that simply visiting fewer places does not linearly predict their sense of missing activities.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it compares different people at one point in time rather than tracking the same people as their dementia progresses. Participants had to recall past and future visits, which may be unreliable for people with memory impairments, although the authors used simple phrasing to support this. The groups were not individually paired, only matched by characteristics, which may introduce subtle biases. The study excluded people with significant mobility disabilities (e.g., wheelchair users), so findings may not apply to those with physical limitations.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the Swiss Alzheimer Association, the Swiss Occupational Therapy Association, and the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE). No other conflicts of interest were declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that increasing the number of places a patient visits will reduce their sense of missing out. In this study, the link between places visited and occupational gaps was not significant for people with dementia, suggesting the quality or meaning of the visits matters more than the quantity.