ABSTRACT

In the United Kingdom, older people with dementia occupy a quarter of the general hospital beds (Alzheimer’s Society, 2009). One out of three emergency medical admissions is of an older person with cognitive impairment; someone with dementia is up to four times more likely to be admitted as an emergency case than someone without (Goldberg et al., 2012) and severity of dementia independently predicts hospitalization (Albert et al., 1999). Arguably, dementia now represents ‘core business’ for general hospital clinical practices.