Study design This study, has a non-equivalent control group design and a historical control Group. The Control group received usual care and the experimental group received usual care plus the dementia-friendly program.~One Group received care after implementing the dementia-friendly hospital program. The study is performed at two medical wards at a large acute-care hospital in Norway. A medical pulmonary ward and a cardiac ward participated.~Data Collection:~Demographic data included age, gender, place of residence (home, adapted housing, institution), and family/relative network, and were obtained upon admission to the study.~Medical data included cause of admission, active medical diagnoses, medications and medical treatment, and were obtained both at admission and from their electronic medical records after discharge.~Cognitive Impairment and delirium were assessed with two different screening tools: the Four Assessment Test (4AT) and the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM).~For all patients with a positive 4AT (≥1) or identified cognitive impairment during their hospital stays, a thorough review of the patient's journal was conducted upon discharge to record if, in case of yes, which type of preventive or treatment measures according to the dementia-friendly program, the patients had received during their stays.
Frail older persons with cognitive impairment are at special risk of experiencing delirium during acute hospitalisation. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a dementia-friendly hospital program contributes to improved detection and management of patients with cognitive impairment and delirium.