WASHINGTON — For people with Alzheimer’s disease, a hospital stay might prove catastrophic.
People with dementia are far more likely to be hospitalized than other older adults, often for preventable reasons like an infection that wasn’t noticed early enough.
Now a new study highlights the lingering ill effects: Being hospitalized seems to increase the chances of Alzheimer’s patients moving into a nursing home — or even dying — within the next year, Harvard researchers reported Monday. The risk is higher if those patients experience what is called delirium, a state of extra confusion and agitation, during their stay.
It’s not clear exactly why, although specialists say delirium is especially bad for an already damaged brain. But the researchers, and independent Alzheimer’s experts, agree that caregivers need to know the risk so they can help a loved one with dementia avoid the hospital if at all possible.
“It’s a very stressful time, being in the hospital,” said lead researcher Dr. Tamara Fong, of the Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston. Often families tell her, “Dad was never the same after he had that surgery, and he was confused.”
