Mental health visits for assisted living residents with dementia dropped as the pandemic set in, a new study finds.
The report, which was published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, used data from 102,758 fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries with Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia. People came from 13,400 assisted living communities between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2020. All of the participants were aged 55 and older.
“While mental health visits via telemedicine increased significantly with the onset of the pandemic, they did not completely offset the in-person visits’ declines,” the authors wrote. “In the last two quarters of 2020, as in-person visits picked up, telemedicine visits began to decline.”
At the end of 2020, 12.59% of participants had mental health visits, down from 14.3% a year before, data showed.
Among assisted living residents with Alzhiemer’s disease or dementia, 71% had depressive symptoms and 61% were diagnosed with a major depressive affective disorder. Those weren’t the only mental health issues, as 54% had anxiety and 21% were diagnosed with psychotic disorders. The mental health burden was higher in minority residents.
Assisted living communities with a higher proportion of dually eligible residents had a lower likelihood of visits before and during the pandemic.
Previous studies have found disparities based on race and ethnicity when it comes to using mental health services. People who were Black and those eligible for Medicaid and Medicare, were less likely to use mental health services before and during the pandemic compared with white people and those only on Medicare.
“Our results confirm that Black assisted living residents were less likely to use these services,” the authors wrote. “However, we are unable to determine whether this was due to disparities, preferences or differences in treatment-seeking behaviors.”
No big differences were found in telehealth visits based on race or ethnicity or Medicare and Medicaid status.
