Palliative Care in Nursing Home Residents with Young-Onset Dementia: Professional and Family Caregiver Perspectives

BACKGROUND: The evidence underpinning palliative care in dementia is mostly based on research in older populations. Little is known about the palliative care needs of people with young-onset dementia (YOD). OBJECTIVE: To describe palliative care practices including advance care planning (ACP) in people with YOD residing in Dutch nursing homes. METHODS: The study presents baseline questionnaire data from an observational cohort study. Physicians, family caregivers, and nursing staff completed questionnaires about 185 residents with YOD. The questionnaires included items on sociodemographics, quality of life measured with the quality of life in late-stage dementia (QUALID) scale, dementia-related somatic health problems, symptoms, pain medication, psychotropic drugs, and ACP. RESULTS: The mean age was 63.9 (SD 5.8) years. Half (50.3%) of them were female. Alzheimer's disease dementia (42.2%) was the most prevalent subtype. The mean QUALID score was 24.0 (SD 7.9) as assessed by family caregivers, and 25.3 (SD 8.6) as assessed by the nursing staff. Swallowing problems were the most prevalent dementia-related health problem (11.4%). Agitation was often reported by physicians (42.0%) and nursing staff (40.5%). Psychotropics were prescribed frequently (72.3%). A minority had written advance directives (5.4%) or documentation on treatment preferences by the former general practitioner (27.2%). Global care goals most often focused on comfort (73.9%). Proportions of do-not-treat orders were higher than do-treat orders for all interventions except for hospitalization and antibiotics. CONCLUSIONS: ACP must be initiated earlier, before nursing home admission. A palliative approach seems appropriate even though residents are relatively young and experience few dementia-related health problems.