The status of current clinical practice in diagnosis of young onset dementia in England: Findings from The Angela Project: Neuropsychiatry and behavioral neurology/assessment/measurement of neuropsychiatric/behavioral and psychological symptoms.

Background: The presentation of dementia in young people is complex and challenging, often resulting in delays in receiving a confirmed diagnosis and appropriate support. A recent Delphi consensus has derived minimum and gold standards for the diagnostic workup that international expert clinicians consider best practice. This presentation will review the results of a large case note audit that assessed compliance with these standards in current UK clinical practice. Method: 403 patient records of young people who received a diagnosis of dementia in the last 5 years were audited according to our minimum and gold standards. Records were obtained from memory services within eight different National Health Service locations from across England. Result: We found significant differences between the sites in meeting the standards, though all sites had median scores that were below 50% compliance for both the minimum and gold standard. This suggests that current UK assessments fail to reach an acceptable standard. Conclusion: Further consultation with clinicians and young people with dementia is necessary to understand local impediments to meeting an acceptable standard and to identify interventions that can lead to improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]