Telemedicine for Delivery of Care in Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration During COVID-19 Pandemic: Results from Southern Italy.
J Alzheimers Dis
; 76(2): 481-489, 2020.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-640417
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The COVID-19 pandemic is changing clinical practice in neurology, after the governments decided the introduction of social distancing and interruption of medical non-emergency services in many countries. Teleneurology is an effective tool for the remote evaluation of patients but its adoption for frontotemporal lobar dementia (FTD) is in a preliminary stage.OBJECTIVE:
We evaluated multidisciplinary assessment of patients with FTD using telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic.METHODS:
All patients received a diagnosis of FTD during 2018-2019 according to international criteria. A structured questionnaire and Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR)-FTD were used by the neurologist with patients and/or caregivers. Index symptoms of COVID-19 infection were searched.RESULTS:
Twenty-eight clinical interviews were completed with caregivers and four with both patients/caregivers. Most patients and caregivers were satisfied with the neurological interview and expressed their willingness to continue to be included in remote evaluation programs (90%). Fifty percent of patients experienced significant worsening of clinical picture and quality of life since the start of social distancing. The CDR-FTD scale revealed a significant worsening of behavior (pâ=â0.01) and language functions (pâ=â0.009), compared to the last in-person evaluation at the center. One patient presented index symptoms of COVID-19 infection and was confirmed to be positive for COVID-19 with pharyngeal swab.CONCLUSION:
The study was conducted in Italy, one of the countries hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, with interruption of all non-emergency medical services. Our study indicates that telemedicine is a valid tool to triage patients with FTD to increase practice outreach and efficiency.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
Telemedicine
/
Coronavirus Infections
/
Delivery of Health Care
/
Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration
/
Pandemics
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
J Alzheimers Dis
Journal subject:
Geriatrics
/
Neurology
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
JAD-200589
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