Grant: Team Grant: Late Life Issues - LOI

Functional decline or loss in the ability to perform activities in daily living, like walking to the bathroom, is one of the most disabling risks for an older person admitted to hospital. The risk increases with a person's age and the number of chronic health conditions they have, especially dementia. The Acute Care for Elders (ACE) model is the Cadillac approach to older adults' hospital and transitional care. This approach has prevented functional decline and other complications (e.g. falls and nursing home admission) in older adults admitted to ACE units in American teaching hospitals located in the city. However, the model has not been adapted and evaluated on non-ACE units in non-teaching hospitals located in suburban and rural parts of Canada. Our interdisciplinary team will adapt and evaluate the ACE model for use with older adults admitted to non-teaching hospitals in suburban and rural Canada. We will do this in collaboration with community partners. This is important to do because suburban and rural communities tend to have fewer staff, like geriatricians, trained in this approach to care. Also, older people in rural areas have more risk of functional decline. Community healthcare providers can use the results to adopt the ACE model so that all older Canadians have fewer complications during their hospital stays and return to their former lives.