The Dementia Dilemma in Hospitals—And what to do about it

By Sarab Sodhi

I walked up to a patient in the Emergency Department, a woman in her 90s who had fallen. She had a decent-size laceration on her forehead and was quite upset. Unable to tell me what had happened, or how she fell, I had to rely on the EMS history. Luckily, the EMTs were still there and could tell me that she had a history of dementia, had fallen at home (where she lived alone) and had been unable to get up for a couple of hours. A neighbor walking by had heard her cries and called 911.

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