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Building adult day center census by preventing premature terminations

Burton V. Reifler, MD, MPH

Kim Yates

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

The purpose of this article is to report on participant discharges from adult day centers, and to determine if some terminations might be preventable, or at least delayed. Thirteen reasons for participant termination, reported over a 39-month period by 49 adult day programs operating 53 adult day centers, were reviewed. Participants (i.e., client population served) at these day centers included: Adults with Alzheimer's disease or related disorders (on average 70.5 percent of the total client base); persons with mental retardation/developmental disabilities; individuals with chronic mental illness; and/or adults with physical problems. Each reason for participant termination was examined based on the potential to reduce the number of terminations. Three basic categories were used as a point of reference: 1) good potential for improvement; 2) moderate potential for improvement; and 3) little or no potentialfor improvement. The discussion offers a variety of considerations from which adult day centers can monitor and evaluate discharges, implement strategies to reduce the number of unnecessary terminations, and maintain center census.

Key Words: adult day care • adult day services • respite • dementia care • Alzheimer's care • discharge patterns

American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias®, Vol. 13, No. 3, 124-130 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/153331759801300304


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