Living Alone with Alzheimer's Disease: Data from SveDem, the Swedish Dementia Registry.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Cermakova, Pavla Nelson, Maja Secnik, Juraj Garcia-Ptacek, Sara Johnell, Kristina Fastbom, Johan Kilander, Lena Winblad, Bengt Eriksdotter, Maria Religa, Dorota
Copyright Year	2017
Abstract	Background: Many people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) live alone in their own homes. There is a lack of knowledge about whether these individuals receive the same quality of diagnostics and treatment for AD as patients who are cohabiting.Objectives: To investigate the diagnostic work-up and treatment of community-dwelling AD patients who live alone.Methods: We performed a cross-sectional cohort study based on data from the Swedish Dementia Registry (SveDem). We studied patients diagnosed with AD between 2007 and 2015 (n = 26,163). Information about drugs and comorbidities was acquired from the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register and the Swedish Patient Register.Results: 11,878 (46%) patients lived alone, primarily older women. After adjusting for confounders, living alone was inversely associated with receiving computed tomography (OR 0.90; 95% CI 0.82–0.99), magnetic resonance imaging (OR 0.91; 95% CI 0.83–0.99), and lumbar puncture (OR 0.86; 95% CI 0.80–0.92). Living alone was also negatively associated with the use of cholinesterase inhibitors (OR 0.81; 95% CI 0.76; 0.87), memantine (OR 0.77; 95% CI 0.72; 0.83), and cardiovascular medication (OR 0.92; 0.86; 0.99). On the other hand, living alone was positively associated with the use of antidepressants (OR 1.15; 95% CI 1.08; 1.22), antipsychotics (OR 1.41; 95% CI 1.25; 1.58), and hypnotics and sedatives (OR 1.09; 95% CI 1.02; 1.17).Conclusions: Solitary living AD patients do not receive the same extent of care as those who are cohabiting.
ISSN	13872877
Journal	Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
Volume Number	58
PubMed Central reference number	PMC5523910
Issue Number	4
PubMed reference number	28550260
e-ISSN	18758908
DOI	10.3233/JAD-170102
Language	English
Publisher	IOS Press
Publisher Date	2017-01-01
Publisher Place	Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved
Subject Keyword	Alzheimer’s disease dementia diagnostics solitary living treatment
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Neuroscience Clinical Psychology Psychiatry and Mental Health Geriatrics and Gerontology