The effect of diagnosing Alzheimer's disease on frequency of physician visits - A case-control study

OBJECTIVE: Two groups of elderly subjects were studied to see whether patterns of visits to physicians changed after one group received the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. DESIGN: Case-control study. SETTING: Health maintenance organization (HMO). PATIENTS/PARTICIPANTS: Two groups of ambulatory subjects (mean age 77 years) were enrolled from an HMO population for this case-control study: 120 cases had probable Alzheimer's disease diagnosed at enrollment, and another 120 cognitively intact controls with similar comorbidity were enrolled after being frequency-matched for age and gender. Exclusion criteria were nursing home admission and death during the study period. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Medical records were examined for a four-year period: two years prior to and two years following enrollment and diagnosis. Physician visits declined slightly after enrollment for the persons receiving the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease [17.5/2 years prior vs 16.5/2 years after (NS)], whereas visits increased over time for the controls [13.7/2 vs 16.3/2 (p<0.05)], hence the rates were similar after enrollment [16.5 vs 16.3 (NS)]. The proportion of subjects with fewer visits during the period after enrollment was higher among the cases than it was among the controls [54% vs 37%; odds ratio =2.0 (95% confidence interval =1.6, 3.1)]. Hospitalizations and emergency department use did not change significantly after enrollment. CONCLUSIONS: Physician visit frequency was high before, then decreased after, demented patients received their diagnosis, approaching the frequency in a control population without dementia. This phenomenon cannot be accounted for by nursing home placement, comorbidity, or mortality. Increased hospitalization and emergency department use did not ensue after diagnosis.