Skip to main content

BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Dement.
Sec. Dementia Care
Volume 3 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frdem.2024.1477242
This article is part of the Research Topic Neurocognitive Disorders in the Community: a Global Perspective View all 8 articles

Telehealth Memory Clinics in Primary Healthcare: Real-World Experiences from lowresource settings in Greece

Provisionally accepted
Eleutheria Aggeletaki Eleutheria Aggeletaki 1*Vasileios Stamos Vasileios Stamos 2*Eleni Konidari Eleni Konidari 3*Apostolos Efkarpidis Apostolos Efkarpidis 1Anna Petrou Anna Petrou 1Kalliopi Savvopoulou Kalliopi Savvopoulou 2Evangelia Kontogianni Evangelia Kontogianni 4KONSTANTINOS TSIMPANIS KONSTANTINOS TSIMPANIS 5Theofanis Vorvolakos Theofanis Vorvolakos 6Antonios Politis Antonios Politis 4,7Panagiotis (Panos) Alexopoulos Panagiotis (Panos) Alexopoulos 3,8,9*
  • 1 General Hospital of Syros, Syros, Greece
  • 2 Primary Healthcare Center of Erymantheia, Erymantheia, Greece
  • 3 General University Hospital of Patras, Pátrai, Greece
  • 4 Eginition Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
  • 5 National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
  • 6 Medical School, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece
  • 7 Johns Hopkins Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
  • 8 Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
  • 9 Technical University of Munich, Munich, Bavaria, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The role of primary healthcare is pivotal in the management of the surge of dementia prevalence particularly in low-resource areas. Here, two telehealth-based memory clinics in primary healthcare operating within the frames of the INTegRated InterveNtion of pSychogerIatric Care (INTRINSIC) are presented.The first clinic, which is led by a general practitioner, operates at a primary healthcare center in a semi-mountainous area and closely collaborates with the geriatric psychiatry outpatient clinic of the Patras University General Hospital via a telehealth medicine platform. The second clinic is embedded at the General Hospital Center for Interconnected Psychiatric Support in the island of Syros, is led by registered nurses and is interconnected with the old-age psychiatry unit at the Eginition University Hospital in Athens.Results: Both memory clinics are in their infancy. At the general practitioner-led memory clinic 13 beneficiaries were assessed and treated during the first six months of its operation. Cognitive decline and depressive and/or anxiety symptoms were detected in ten and eight individuals, respectively. In nine of the 27 beneficiaries of the registered nurse-led memory clinic either mild cognitive impairment or dementia was diagnosed, while affective and/or anxiety symptoms were detected in almost all of them. Of note, only 14 beneficiaries of both clinics had received a diagnosis of a mental or neurocognitive disorder prior their assessment at the memory clinics.Developing memory clinics in primary healthcare may be a pragmatic strategy to improve access of older adults living in low-resource areas to cognitive healthcare services.

    Keywords: Memory clinics, Low-resource settings, Low-and middle-income countries, Telemedicine, Dementia, Mild Cognitive Impairment

    Received: 08 Aug 2024; Accepted: 12 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Aggeletaki, Stamos, Konidari, Efkarpidis, Petrou, Savvopoulou, Kontogianni, TSIMPANIS, Vorvolakos, Politis and Alexopoulos. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Eleutheria Aggeletaki, General Hospital of Syros, Syros, 84100, Greece
    Vasileios Stamos, Primary Healthcare Center of Erymantheia, Erymantheia, Greece
    Eleni Konidari, General University Hospital of Patras, Pátrai, 26504, Greece
    Panagiotis (Panos) Alexopoulos, General University Hospital of Patras, Pátrai, 26504, Greece

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.