Community-dwelling patients with dementia and their informal caregivers with and without case management: 2-year outcomes of a pragmatic trial.

Objective: To evaluate outcomes for persons with dementia and primary informal caregivers of 2 types of implemented case management (intensive case management [ICMM] and linkage [LM] models) with no case management (control group).

Design: A pragmatic trial using a prospective, observational, controlled, cohort study.

Setting: Community care in the Netherlands.

Participants: A total of 521 dyads.

Intervention: Case management provided within one care organization (ICMM), case management where multiple case management organizations are present within one region (LM), and a group with no access to case management (control).

Measurements: Neuropsychiatric problems in persons with dementia assessed by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) and psychological health in informal caregivers as measured with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Secondary outcomes included care and support needs, quality of life, and institutionalization. Comparability of groups at baseline was secured by inverse-propensity-score-weighted mixed models.

Results: No significant differences in changes in total NPI or GHQ-12 scores between the groups over 2 years were found. Secondary outcomes showed better quality-of-life scores for informal caregivers in the ICMM than the LM. Total needs, met and unmet care needs were significantly less in the ICMM compared with the control group.

Conclusion: Neither case management type affected clinical outcomes of dyads meaningfully. The ICMM has positive impact on caregivers' quality of life and patient's number of needs compared with persons in LM and persons without access to case management respectively.