Telemedicine-assisted care of an older patient with COVID-19 and dementia: bridging the gap between hospital and home.
Aging Clin Exp Res
; 33(6): 1753-1756, 2021 Jun.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1231955
ABSTRACT
Hospital at Home (HaH) has been proposed as a solution to relieve pressure on hospital beds during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, caregivers' feelings of inadequacy and concerns on the need for tighter clinical monitoring might lead to unnecessary and potentially harmful hospital admissions in frail older patients with mild or atypical COVID-19. Here we report the case of a 91-year old woman with severe dementia and atypical COVID-19 that could be successfully managed by our HaH thanks to her highly motivated caregivers and the support of a telemedicine solution (TMS) to provide caregiver training and support as well as supplementary telemonitoring. Despite some well-known issues on TMS use, the hybrid in-person and tele-visit approach of TMS-assisted HaH could help to create a "secure" environment, empowering caregivers to manage frail older adults with COVID-19 at home, avoiding unnecessary admissions to closed wards and their negative physical, functional and psychological outcomes.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Telemedicine
/
Dementia
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Case report
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Aging Clin Exp Res
Journal subject:
Geriatrics
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S40520-021-01875-2
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