BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES
People with dementia (PwD) frequently use emergency care services. To mitigate the disproportionately high rate of emergency care use by PwD, an understanding of contributing factors driving reliance on emergency care services and identification of feasible alternatives are needed. This study aimed to identify clinician, caregiver, and service providers' views and experiences of unmet needs leading to emergency care use among community‐dwelling PwD and alternative ways of addressing these needs.
DESIGN
Qualitative, employing semistructured interviews with clinicians, informal caregivers, and aging service providers.
SETTING
Wisconsin, United States.
PARTICIPANTS
Informal caregivers of PwD (n = 4), emergency medicine physicians (n = 4), primary care physicians (n = 5), geriatric healthcare providers (n = 5), aging service providers (n = 6), and community paramedics (n = 3).
MEASUREMENTS
Demographic characteristics of participants and data from semistructured interviews.
FINDINGS
Four major themes were identified from interviews: (1) system fragmentation influences emergency care use by PwD, (2) informational, decision‐making, and social support needs influence emergency care use by PwD, (3) emergency departments (EDs) are not designed to optimally address PwD and caregiver needs, and (4) options to prevent and address emergency care needs of PwD.
CONCLUSION
Participants identified numerous system and individual‐level unmet needs and offered many recommendations to prevent or improve ED use by PwD. These novel findings, aggregating the perspectives of multiple dementia‐care stakeholder groups, serve as the first step to developing interventions that prevent the need for emergency care or deliver tailored emergency care services to this vulnerable population through new approaches. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:711–718, 2019.
Background: Persons with dementia use emergency department services at rates greater than other older adults. Despite risks associated with emergency department use, persons with
Medial patellofemoral ligament (MPFL) repair is discouraged for the treatment of chronic, recurrent patellar instability (RPI) because of high reported failure rates. However, the senior author uses MPFL repair for chronic RPI in the setting of low tibial tubercle-trochlear groove (TT-TG) distance. In this retrospective case series, we report results and evaluate outcome predictors. We used billing records to identify all patients, 14 years or older, who underwent isolated repair for chronic RPI performed by a single surgeon between September 2010 and February 2019. The TT-TG distance, patellar height (Caton-Deschamps Index [CDI]), and trochlear depth were measured on preoperative magnetic resonance imaging; postoperative reports were reviewed; and post hoc Kuala scores were obtained to extend outcome length. Patellar dislocation or revision surgery was considered a failure. Nonfailures were categorized as excellent or fair, based on the most recent report. Univariable generalized estimating equation models were used to evaluate associations of predictors (radiographic parameters, age, ligamentous laxity, primary presenting complaint) with failure and/or success. A total of 93 isolated MPFL repairs were performed. After exclusions were made for workers' compensation insurance (n=4), substance abuse (n=3), major secondary trauma less than 3 months postoperatively (n=3), and follow-up of less than 12 months (n=42), 41 knees (38 patients) had median follow-up of 32 months (interquartile range, 19–48 months). All repairs were patellar sided. Outcomes for 4 knees were considered failures, 23 were excellent, and 14 were fair. Only increased CDI was associated with increased risk of failure (odds ratio, 1.70; 95% CI, 0.98–2.92;
P
=.06). Mean CDI was 1.23 mm (SD, 0.13 mm) for failures vs 1.08 mm (SD, 0.16 mm) for nonfailures. Failure rate was less than 10% following patellar-sided MPFL repair for treatment of chronic RPI among patients with low TT-TG distance. Increased patellar height was associated with higher risk of failure. [
Orthopedics
. 2022;45(1):e23–e29.]
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.