Dementia-Specific Palliative Care: Integrating Evidence into Clinical Care Across Settings

Over 7 million Americans are living with dementia, experiencing years of distressing symptoms, caregiver strain, and fragmented care across settings. Dementia-specific palliative care—delivered by interdisciplinary teams with expertise in geriatrics and serious illness—offers a model to improve quality of life, address complex symptoms, and guide care aligned with patient and family goals.
This 60-minute symposium will present three leading approaches to dementia palliative care in the home, hospital, and hospice, followed by a synthesis and moderated discussion of common principles and implementation challenges.
• Laura Hanson, MD (10 minutes) will discuss findings from the ADRD-PC trial of inpatient dementia-specific palliative care consultation across five hospitals. Key takeaways include the value of early identification, structured goals-of-care conversations, and transitional support.
• Greg Sachs, MD (10 minutes) will describe lessons from the IN-PEACE trial, which tested a nurse- or social worker-led telephone intervention for people with moderate-to-severe dementia living at home. The session will highlight practical strategies for scalable delivery of dementia palliative care in the community.
• Maribeth Gallagher, DNP (10 minutes) will explore the unique role of hospice in dementia care, including transitions from community based supportive care, eligibility challenges, care at the end of life, and grief support for caregivers.
• David Lynch, BMBS (10 minutes) will synthesize common themes—structured communication, caregiver engagement, interdisciplinary delivery—and lead a discussion of how these models align with emerging payment structures such as GUIDE and Chronic Care Management.
Moderated Discussion and Audience Q&A (20 minutes) will invite attendees to reflect on opportunities for expanding access to equitable, high-quality palliative care for people with dementia and their caregivers.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe lessons learned and best practices using three models of dementia-specific palliative care across home, hospital, and hospice settings.
• Identify how dementia palliative care complements and enhances other dementia care interventions, including care coordination, ACP, and comprehensive management.