Good Cop, Better Cop: Evaluation of a Geriatrics Training Program for Police

2024 Alzheimer's disease facts and figures

This article describes the public health impact of Alzheimer's disease (AD), including prevalence and incidence, mortality and morbidity, use and costs of care and the ramifications of AD for family caregivers, the dementia workforce and society. The Special Report discusses the larger health care system for older adults with cognitive issues, focusing on the role of caregivers and non-physician health care professionals. An estimated 6.9 million Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's dementia today. This number could grow to 13.8 million by 2060, barring the development of medical breakthroughs to prevent or cure AD. Official AD death certificates recorded 119,399 deaths from AD in 2021. In 2020 and 2021, when COVID-19 entered the ranks of the top ten causes of death, Alzheimer's was the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States. Official counts for more recent years are still being compiled. Alzheimer's remains the fifth-leading cause of death among Americans age 65 and older. Between 2000 and 2021, deaths from stroke, heart disease and HIV decreased, whereas reported deaths from AD increased more than 140%. More than 11 million family members and other unpaid caregivers provided an estimated 18.4 billion hours of care to people with Alzheimer's or other dementias in 2023. These figures reflect a decline in the number of caregivers compared with a decade earlier, as well as an increase in the amount of care provided by each remaining caregiver. Unpaid dementia caregiving was valued at $346.6 billion in 2023. Its costs, however, extend to unpaid caregivers' increased risk for emotional distress and negative mental and physical health outcomes. Members of the paid health care and broader community-based workforce are involved in diagnosing, treating and caring for people with dementia. However, the United States faces growing shortages across different segments of the dementia care workforce due to a combination of factors, including the absolute increase in the number of people living with dementia. Therefore, targeted programs and care delivery models will be needed to attract, better train and effectively deploy health care and community-based workers to provide dementia care. Average per-person Medicare payments for services to beneficiaries age 65 and older with AD or other dementias are almost three times as great as payments for beneficiaries without these conditions, and Medicaid payments are more than 22 times as great. Total payments in 2024 for health care, long-term care and hospice services for people age 65 and older with dementia are estimated to be $360 billion. The Special Report investigates how caregivers of older adults with cognitive issues interact with the health care system and examines the role non-physician health care professionals play in facilitating clinical care and access to community-based services and supports. It includes surveys of caregivers and health care workers, focusing on their experiences, challenges, awareness and perceptions of dementia care navigation.

Examining the propensity and nature of criminal risk behaviours in frontotemporal dementia syndromes and Alzheimer's disease

INTRODUCTION

Some people with dementia develop changes in behaviour and cognition that may lead to interactions with police or the legal system. However, large, prospective case-control studies examining these behaviours are lacking.

METHODS

One hundred and forty-four people with dementia and 53 controls completed the Misdemeanours and Transgressions Screener.

RESULTS

Criminal risk behaviours were reported in: 65.6% of behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia, 46.2% of right-lateralised semantic dementia, and 27.0% of Alzheimer's disease patients. In 19.1% of patients these behaviours led to contact with police or authority figures. Compared to controls, people with dementia showed higher rates of physical assault (p = 0.024), financial/professional recklessness (p = 0.009), and inappropriate behaviours (p  = 0.052).

DISCUSSION

Criminal risk behaviours are common across dementia subtypes and may be one of the first clinical signs of frontotemporal dementia. Further research to understand how to balance risk minimisation with an individual's liberties as well as the inappropriate criminalisation of people with dementia is needed.

Highlights

The Misdemeanours and Transgressions Screener is a new tool to assess criminal risk behaviours.Forty-seven percent of patients with dementia show criminal risk behaviour after dementia onset.Behaviours included verbal abuse, traffic violations, physical assault.New onset of criminal risk behaviours >50 years is a clinical sign for frontotemporal dementia.

Aging In Jail: Retrospective Analysis Of Older Patients In New York City's Jail System, 2015-19

There are currently more adults age fifty-five or older incarcerated in the United States than ever before. Little is known about the epidemiology or health care needs of geriatric patients in jails, where the majority of the population is being held in pretrial detention. We performed a retrospective analysis of electronic health record data to characterize the demographics, health conditions, and health care use of people age fifty-five or older who were incarcerated in the New York City jail system between 2015 and 2019. People in this age group accounted for 4 percent of admissions to the jails in 2009, ten years before the study's end date; 7 percent of admissions in 2015, when the study began; and 8.5 percent of admissions by 2019. They were more likely to report being homeless; suffer from a serious mental illness designation; carry a higher burden of chronic, infectious, and serious medical illnesses; be hospitalized during their incarceration; and die in jail custody than their younger counterparts. All elements of the criminal justice system need to be attuned to the vulnerabilities of this group, implement targeted interventions to divert them from incarceration when possible, and minimize harms for those who end up incarcerated.

A Matter of Intent: A Social Obligation to Improve Criminal Procedures for Individuals with Dementia

The relationship between dementia and criminal behavior perplexes legal and health care systems. Dementia is a progressive clinical syndrome defined by impairment in at least two cognitive domains that interferes with one's activities of daily. Dementia symptoms have been associated with behaviors that violate social norms and constitute criminal actions. A failure to address a gap in policies that support appropriate management of individuals with dementia reflects a failure in our social obligation to care for those who are most vulnerable amongst us. Categorical protections, informed by precedent models applied to juveniles and individuals with psychiatric illness, could help meet a social obligation to provide protections to individuals with dementia. We propose an approach that integrates affirmative defenses to mitigate criminal liability and sentencing restrictions to prevent cruel and unusual punishment.

Police Interactions Among Neuropathologically Confirmed Dementia Patients: Prevalence and Cause

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to investigate and compare the prevalence and recurrence of police interaction (PI) with patients diagnosed with dementia. We also aimed to study the reason behind the PI, the time of occurrence of PI, and potential consequences of the PI.

METHODS

For this retrospective medical records' review, we included 281 cases with a neuropathologic dementia diagnosis from the Department of Pathology, Region Skane/Lund University, between 1967 and 2013. The diagnoses were Alzheimer disease, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, vascular dementia, and mixed dementia. A prerequisite was that extensive clinical investigation and follow-up had been conducted at the Department of Geriatric Psychiatry in Lund.

RESULTS

Of the 281 patients studied, 50 (18%) had a history of interacting with the police during the course of their disease. Frontotemporal dementia patients had a relatively higher prevalence of PI and more often due to criminal behavior. The recurrence of PIs differed among the groups; frontotemporal dementia patients exhibited a higher PI recurrence compared with the other groups.

CONCLUSIONS

The patterns of PIs differ between the frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer disease patients. Knowledge about such differences may be of value for the police, the judiciary system, and the society in general.