Dementia Research in ED Settings
With Chris Carpenter
Dr. Chris Carpenter is a GEDC faculty member who has previously been a guest on two episodes of GEMCast “Five Ways to Geriatricize Your ED” in June 2016 and “New Geriatric ED Accreditation – Why You Should Care” in May 2017. Since then, so much has happened in the world of Geriatric Emergency Medicine, and Dr. Carpenter has made significant contributions to the development of clinical policies, guidelines, and educational resources. One activity that is particularly pertinent to this episode is Dr. Carpenter’s role as co-Investigator on the NIA-funded Geriatric Emergency care Applied Research Network 1.0 (GEAR 1.0) and Geriatric Emergency care Applied Research Network 2.0 – Advancing Dementia Care (GEAR 2.0 – ADC).
Listen to this episode of GEMCast to learn about GEAR 2.0 – ADC and how they identified and prioritized research gaps in emergency care for persons living with dementia and their care partners.
Key Points
- Practice change will require generating evidence.
- Understand how to justify to skeptics that dementia research is possible in the ED; there are ethical ways to recruit these patients and obtain their consent.
- There is a need for more researchers in this field to test different interventions, theories, and approaches. Then there will be substance to build interventions that will change patient outcomes and ED operations worldwide.
- Recognize what we know, where our gaps are, and what areas are important to focus on to improve care for older patients.
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that ain’t so.”
– Mark Twain
Resources
- Show Me the Science – Access Podcast
- Reflections of an Alzheimer’s spouse – View Blog