Intensive Care Unit Bed Availability and Use of Mechanical Ventilation in Nursing Home Residents With Advanced Dementia: When We Build It, Why Do They Come?

Caring for the expanding population of patients with advanced dementia is one of the most important challenges for the US health care system. Patients and families experience an extraordinary illness trajectory including years of functional dependency and high rates of acute and long-term health care use. The final stage of dementia lasts more than a year and is marked by acute comorbidities including frequent infections.¹