CALIFORNIA: One in every four senior citizens with dementia or mild cognitive impairment lives alone, making them vulnerable to risky driving, wandering outside the home, mixing up medications, and skipping appointments.
According to a study led by UC San Francisco and published in JAMA Network Open, patients living alone with cognitive decline, whose numbers are expected to rise as the population ages, are not effectively served by the health system.
For these patients, living alone is a social determinant of health with an impact as profound as poverty, racism and low education, said first author Elena Portacolone who published the report.
