The Consequences of Non-Cognitive Symptoms of Dementia in Medical Hospital Departments

Objective:To our knowledge, there are no studies investigating the non-cognitive symptoms of patients with dementia such as depression, agitation, or delusions among general hospital inpatients. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of such non-cognitive symptoms among medical inpatients and to analyze their impact on the length of hospital stay and on admission to nursing homes.Method:The sample consisted of 372 elderly inpatients admitted to four internal medical departments (i.e., not including psychiatric wards) in Austria. Patients were investigated by research psychiatrists using the Clinical Interview Schedule. For the analyses of the non-cognitive symptomatology, only marked and severe symptoms were included. To identify predictors for the length of hospital stay and for nursing home placement, multivariate regression procedures were used.Results:Of all inpatients, 27.4% met criteria for dementia according to DSM-III-R. Of those with dementia, 27.8% had marked or severe non-cognit...