Efficacy of Adherence to Guideline-Based Dementia Management

Does adherence to a guideline-based management program for dementia improve care and health outcomes? To find out, researchers tracked 408 patients with dementia and their caregivers, randomly assigning 238 patient-caregiver pairs to the guideline-based disease-management intervention group, which included computerized case records, case managers who provided home and phone follow-up for each patient-caregiver pair, and health care provider education. The rest received standard care. Participants were tracked for an average of 22 months and assessed for their caregivers’ adherence to the 23 prescribed guidelines, for receipt of community resources, and for patient and caregiver health and quality-of-life (QOL) measures.

Significantly more pa…