Home May Not Be Best for Dementia Care, Research Says

A study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society suggests older Americans living at home with advancing dementia may endure more pain and more unmet medical requirements than those in nursing communities, reports Considerable . People at home lived with more chronic conditions, experienced more pain, and had more falls compared with nursing community residents. Persons based at home also were more likely to be anxious and in poorer health. "People with dementia benefit from consistent and predictable environments and caregivers," said University of California, San Francisco Professor Krista Harrison. However, she also noted "rates of nursing (community) use are declining because they are expensive and people generally prefer the familiarity of home."