Mapping the evidence on dementia care pathways – A scoping review

One way of standardizing practice and improving patient safety is by introducing clinical care pathways; however, such pathways are typically geared towards assisting clinicians and healthcare organizations with evidence-based practice. Many dementia care pathways exist with no agreed-upon version of a care pathway and with little data on experiences about their use or outcomes. The objectives of the review were: (1) to identify the dementia care pathway’s purpose, methods used to deploy the pathway, and expected user types; (2) to identify the care pathway’s core components, expected outcomes, and implications for persons with dementia and their care partners; and (3) determine the extent of involvement by persons with dementia and/or their care partners in developing, implementing, and evaluating the care pathways.

We systematically searched six literature databases for published literature in the English language in September 2023 utilizing Arskey and O’Malley’s scoping review framework.

The findings from the dementia care pathways (n = 13) demonstrated assistance in dementia diagnostic and management practices for clinicians and offered structured care processes in clinical settings. For this reason, these pathways emphasized assessment and interventional post-diagnostic support, with less emphasis on community-based integrated dementia care.

Future dementia care pathway development can seek the involvement of persons with dementia and care partners in designing, implementing and evaluating such pathways, ensuring that outcome measures properly reflect the impact on persons with lived dementia experience and their care partners.