Dementia day care and its effects on symptoms and institutionalization - a controlled Swedish study

Objective - To examine the effects of Day Care (DC) on demented patients.Design - A prospective non-randomized concurrent-control study.Participants - 55 demented patients in DC and 44 controls.Setting - Sundsvall, an industrial community in northern Sweden.Main outcome measure - Cognition, ADL-functions, behaviour and institutionalization.Results - Measurements of cognition, ADL-functions, and behaviour showed no or only small differences between the groups. After one year, 24% of the patients in the DC-group were institutionalized, compared with 44% of the controls. In the control group, the exhaustion of spouse and supervision need were highly correlated to institutionalization (p < 0.001), while high physical nursing load was correlated to institutionalization in the DC-group (p < 0.01). Conclusion - DC postpones institutionalization, probably because of less exhaustion of spouses and decreased supervision need.