Patients with dementia and their caregivers need ongoing educational and psychosocial support to manage their complex diagnosis. This mixed methods study evaluated the impact of a memory clinic with an embedded dementia navigator on the experiences and health outcomes of patients with dementia and their caregivers. At the 12-month follow-up, patients receiving memory clinic services (n = 238) had higher emergency department visits than a matched cohort with dementia (n = 938), although hospitalizations did not differ. Patient quality of life and caregiver burden scores also did not differ between baseline and 12-months. Interviews revealed that caregivers (n = 12) valued the educational and social support components of the memory clinic and perceived that the clinic had a positive impact on their experiences. Findings suggest that this embedded navigator model is useful for addressing caregiver needs and may have potential to stem increases in caregiver burden and patient quality of life that occur with disease progression.
Keywords: dementia; health outcomes; mixed methods.