Emergency hospital admissions and days alive and out of hospital in people living with dementia: a population-based study in North West London from 2017-2025

Emergency admissions and bed-days are substantially higher before and after dementia diagnosis in North West London residents aged 50+, with post-diagnosis admission rate ratio 6.67.

• Why it matters: Emergency hospital use timing and drivers around dementia diagnosis are not well quantified, and it is unclear how admissions relate to survival and subsequent hospital burden.
• What they did: Using linked electronic health records (Discover Database) for 1,260,798 residents (8,663,287 person-years), the study compared admission/bed-day rates across controls, pre-diagnosis, and post-diagnosis, and analyzed 180-day days alive and out of hospital in cause-matched pairs.
• The result: After matching on demographic factors, primary cause, and electronic frailty, post-diagnosis admissions had 6.41 fewer days alive and out of hospital over 180 days, alongside 2.71 more hospital days and 3.70 more days lost to death.