Collaborative care for people with dementia

According to blogger Jeff Muise (Caregiver Notes), it’s about time that the medical community is discovering what most people in the caregiving and service sectors have understood for a long time. An article in the November issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine posits the need, Muise said, for “a system that fosters collaboaration among healthcare providers, community service organizations, and caregivers.”

To which Muise, a caregiver for his 90-year-old father, says, “well, duh.”

Again relying on Muise (I don’t have the journal), researchers at the Indiana University Center for Aging found that “most people with dementia only get care from their primary care doctor, and in the words of study co-author Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH, neither the primary care system nor primary physicians have the time or resources to meet the biopsychosocial needs of individuals with dementia.

In other words, it takes a village to support the whole lives of vulnerable people and those who care for them. But right now, that village doesn’t have enough money to sustain it.

Muise says the article’s vague endorsement of the right combination of critical components of dementia care to the right patient and the right caregiver at the right time really boils down to this: “each primary care practice should have a dedicated professional caseworker to follow up patient needs that extend beyond the practice walls.”

Muise lives in Woodstock, New York. I think things are a little better here in the Milwaukee area, in part because we have an amazing collaborative community, as we just witnessed at our Annual Networking Conference for Professionals in Aging last Friday. There, people not only collected business cards, pens, candy, and information; they discussed solutions to problems and shared dreams.

As Stephanie Sue Stein (director of the Milwaukee County Department on Aging) has said, what we have in Milwaukee is unique and advanced beyond the professional collaborations in aging services anywhere else.

But there’s still so very far to go. Please share your experiences in collaborative care. We’d be especially interested in hearing about successful collaborations with physicians.