Evaluating Alzheimer's special care units: reviewing the evidence and identifying potential sources of study bias.
Special Care Units (SCUs) for Alzheimer's disease have been proliferating in long-term care, but their effectiveness remains unproven. This review summarizes the published studies, presents and discusses the many potential sources of bias that pose special problems for SCU research, and proposes strategies for conducting and interpreting future outcome studies in this difficult research setting.
Sloane
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PD
Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599-7595.
Lindeman
D A
DA
Phillips
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C
Moritz
D J
DJ
Koch
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G
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease; D015982:Bias; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D006801:Humans; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D014481:United States