Transitions to residential aged care after hospital for people living with dementia

The median length of stay of first hospitalisations was 5-days for people living with dementia and 3-days for people without dementia. However, this varied substantially by whether people were living in the community or in residential aged care before their hospitalisation, and transitions after their hospitalisation (Figure 14 and Table S1.24).

Median length of stay by change in usual residence or mortality

Figure 14 shows that for people living with dementia and people without dementia, the median length of stay was:

• Similar for community-dwellers, aged care residents and aged-care residents who died (between 3 and 5-days),
• Longer for community-dwellers who died (11-days for people living with dementia and 9-days for people without dementia),
• Longest for people who transitioned to residential aged care (24-days).

For people who lived in the community prior to their hospitalisation, these results show that people who were able to return to live in the community were able to spend less time in hospital compared with people who died or needed to transition into residential aged care. This is likely because they had less complex healthcare needs (see clinical characteristics summary), but unmeasured factors such as availability of carers, whether the person lives alone and whether the person was accessing community aged care are also likely to influence how quickly a person living with dementia is able to return home.

The impact of conditions reported during hospitalisation on median length of stay are explored next.

Figure 14 Median length of first hospitalisation for people living with dementia, by change in usual residence or mortality within 7-days of discharge

Note: Error bars represent the inter-quartile range (IQR), which indicates how much people’s average length of stay tends to vary from the median.

Source: AIHW NIHSI 2018–19, analysis of NIHSI.