The local health authority of Modena is the protagonist of the European Recage project, the results of which will be presented on Friday 9 June, at the headquarters of the Emilia-Romagna Region in Bologna, during the seminar entitled “The Special Units of Care for Behavioral Disorders ( SCU-B) of patients with dementia”. Representing the Modena Ausl – the only healthcare company in the region involved – will be Andrea Fabbo, Director of the Center for Cognitive Disorders and Dementia, who will take stock of the territorial network for dementia in the Modena area, the psychologist and psychotherapist Valentina Reda and Valentina Pecoraro of the Innovation Sector in Health and Social Services.
The Recage project involved 12 centers specializing in the care of people with dementia in seven European countries (Italy, France, Germany, Norway, Greece, the Netherlands, Switzerland). Six centers that took part in the project – including the Modena Ausl through the Nodaia accredited nursing home – intensive care dementia hospital unit – had a SCU-B (Special Unit for behavioral disorders) capable of hospitalizing short-term patients in periods of crisis linked to psycho-behavioral decompensation, while six other realities, which did not have this unit, worked as a ‘control group’ carrying out only outpatient visits. The aim of the international study was to evaluate both the short- and long-term efficacy of a new intervention modality, the Special Care Unit for patients with psycho-behavioral disorders (BPSD), and at the same time to determine the cost-effectiveness ratio.
“It is important to stimulate a discussion in the regional context on the special units dedicated to behavioral disorders in the light of the European project which is drawing to a close – says Andrea Fabbo, Director of the Center for Cognitive Disorders and Dementia -. On this issue, in relation to the aging of the population and the increase in the number of elderly people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia (almost 70,000 cases in Emilia-Romagna, of which about 12,000 in the province of Modena alone), there is a need to evaluate a reorganization of services in the hospital-territory system as behavioral disorders often cause inappropriate hospitalisations, high demand for institutionalization and, in short, high pressure on the entire regional social-health system. The need therefore arises both from the objective of decongesting hospital admissions and from the objective of guaranteeing an emergency response within the territorial and social-health care system. The evidence in the literature indicates that an optimal response can come above all from intermediate care and from the role of community hospitals which could be a valid resource”.