Individual and contextual predictors of emergency department visits among community-living older adults: a register-based prospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the extent to which contextual factors explain emergency department (ED) visits and ED revisits, additional to that explained by individual factors. DESIGN: A register-based prospective cohort study. SETTING: Swedish region of Dalarna. PARTICIPANTS: Participants were 16 543 community-living adults aged 80 or older who were residents of the Dalarna region of Sweden, excluding older adults who moved out of Dalarna or into residential care during the study period. OUTCOME MEASURES: Dependent variables were initial ED visit, and at least one ED revisit within 30 days of an initial ED visit. RESULTS: Approximately 36% of the participants visited the ED during the study period with 18.9% returning to the ED within 30 days. For both initial ED visits and ED revisits, the addition of contextual factors to models containing individual factors significantly improved model fit (p<0.001; p<0.022) and the amount of variance explained in the outcome. In the final models, initial ED visit was significantly associated with older age, number of chronic diseases, receipt of home help, number of primary care visits, proportion of 80+ in the population and shorter distance to the ED; while an ED revisit was significantly associated with greater use of social care, number of hospital admissions and disposition (discharged; admitted to hospital) at initial ED visit. CONCLUSION: Contextual factors explain variance in initial ED visit, additional to that explained by individual factors alone, which indicates inequitable access to ED care. These findings suggest considering local variations in contextual factors in order to improve health-related outcomes among older adults.

Dual-Task Tests Predict Conversion to Dementia-A Prospective Memory-Clinic-Based Cohort Study.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether Timed Up-and-Go (TUG) dual-task (TUGdt) tests predict dementia incidence among patients with subjective or mild cognitive impairment (SCI; MCI). Other study objectives were to determine whether TUGdt improves dementia prediction compared to a) demographic characteristics and standard cognitive tests alone; and b) TUG and Verbal Fluency performed separately. Patients (n = 172, age range 39-91 years, 78 women) with SCI or MCI performed TUGdt tests, including 1) naming animals and 2) reciting months backwards, and clinical cognitive tests at baseline. Diagnoses were identified at follow-up after 2.5 years. Logistic regression was used to predict dementia incidence, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and c-statistics for predictive capacity. Analyses were stratified by age and gender. At follow-up, 51 patients had developed dementia. The TUGdt result "animals/10 s" was associated with dementia incidence (standardized odds ratio (OR) = 4.06, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.28-7.23, p < 0.001), more so among patients under the median age of 72 years (standardized OR = 19.4, 95% CI 3.53-106.17, p < 0.001). TUGdt "animals/10 s" improved dementia prediction compared to demographic characteristics and standard tests alone (c-statistics 0.88 to 0.94) and single-task tests (c-statistics 0.86 to 0.89), but only in the younger patient group. TUGdt has the potential to become a useful tool for dementia prediction.