[Incontinence, dementia and multiple morbidity--predictive factors for nursing care requirement and nursing home admission].

The present survey monitored all new admissions to 4 homes for the aged/nursing homes in the area of Velbert/Neviges (Nordrhein-Westphalia, Germany) over a 12-month period in 1996 and 1997, respectively. The study concentrated on the importance of incontinence, dementia and comorbidity when predicting need of care and removals to nursing homes. The statistical evaluation reveals a net coherence between dementia, nursing level and incontinence, and stresses the importance of these factors for the nursing home situation in Germany as the position increasingly develops into providing for and serving a clientele which is dement and heavily in need of care. Furthermore, the evaluation clearly shows that incontinence is still taboo to doctors as well as to their patients, and that, in spite of the medical and economical importance, the affected and their relatives are generally poorly informed. The described results imply a change in how to treat incontinence, dementia and comorbidity and should lead to renewed therapeutical concepts.