Clinical Trials Logo

Clinical Trial Summary

Dementia affects 10% of the elderly population in Singapore. However, there is a lack of systematic information regarding end of life (EOL) care received by patients dying with severe dementia (PDSD), PDSD's EOL direct and indirect costs and caregiver burden. This study, a first of-its-kind prospective cohort study in Singapore will assess the EOL care received by PDSD and PDSD's caregivers, EOL medical and social care costs of severe dementia and caregiver burden; and will develop a risk score to predict 6-month mortality for PDSD. The investigators will accomplish this by surveying caregivers of PDSD every 4 months till the patient passes away and 6 weeks and 6 months after patient's death during caregiver bereavement. The investigators will also extract and match patient medical and billing data with survey data for comprehensive assessment of care costs.

Key outcomes achieved by this study will be improved understanding of PDSD's EOL care, EOL care costs, and caregiver burden and bereavement. The systematic data collected will also lead to predicting 6 month mortality for community dwelling PDSD with greater accuracy compared to existing tools. Positive implications from this study will be improved early decision making by caregivers regarding EOL care and physician referrals for palliative care services; and a better understanding of EOL care for PDSD and PDSD's caregivers that will lead to cross-sector collaborations to improve delivery of palliative care to PDSD. In this way this proposal is highly responsive to the grant call which focuses on early decision making and cross sector palliative care delivery among non-cancer patients. In the long term, this study will improve clinical and public health policy and has the potential to be the foundation for future initiatives for dementia care and improved social and medical infrastructure planning.


Clinical Trial Description

n/a


Study Design


Related Conditions & MeSH terms


NCT number NCT03382223
Study type Observational
Source Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School
Contact Chetna Malhotra, MD, MPH
Phone 65165692
Email chetna.malhotra@duke-nus.edu.sg
Status Recruiting
Phase
Start date May 8, 2018
Completion date October 30, 2021

See also
  Status Clinical Trial Phase
Completed NCT01774799 - Educational Video to Improve Nursing Home Care in End-stage Dementia N/A
Completed NCT03548142 - Advanced Dementia and End-of-life N/A
Completed NCT04779684 - Promoting Self-determination for Institutionalized Older People Without Decision-making Capacity: Advance Care Planning by Proxy N/A