The Connecticut Hospice Inc. recently expanded its disease-specific program for dementia patients, dubbed Magnolia Care.

The program, which launched three years ago, offers specialized services for patients with dementia-related conditions nearing the end of life.

Patients with dementia-related conditions often face more complicated end-of-life trajectories that require caregivers to have a deeper well of supportive resources and knowledge compared to others, The Connecticut Hospice indicated.

“One of the conditions which has seen a huge increase in incidence is dementia, in part because other diseases can be cured or controlled, leaving more people to suffer from mental decline at the end of life,” the organization stated in a recent announcement. “This can be particularly hard on families, who are often grieving the loss of the person they knew, while that loved one is still alive.”

The Connecticut Hospice operates a 52-bed palliative care and hospice inpatient facility and provides home-based care across 70 cities in its home state. The hospice provided inpatient care to an estimated 1,767 patients and home-based services to 2,016 patients in 2021, according to its biennial report.

Established in 1974 and founded by Florence Wald and a group of clinicians and clergy members, the nonprofit was among the first hospice providers in the United States.

The Connecticut Hospice cited several goals behind Magnolia Care, including implementing best practices in end-of-life care delivery and assistance managing patient behaviors, among others.

“The training that we are giving to our nurses, aides and social workers, combined with our longstanding knowledge of treatment options that preserve quality of life, has allowed us to design Magnolia Care in the most thoughtful of ways,” the organization stated.

Growing demand is among the factors driving hospices’ investment.

Alzheimer’s and dementia-related conditions were the fifth leading cause of death among adults 65 and older in 2021, reported the Alzheimer’s Association. Roughly 13 million seniors will have some type of this disease by 2050, nearly double the current volume.

The end-of-life for patients with dementia conditions can be a difficult time to both predict and manage. The toll on family caregivers last year alone included an estimated 18.4 billion hours of care provided, valued at nearly $350 billion, the Alzheimer’s Association report found.

Roughly 70% of dementia patients’ family caregivers indicated that care coordination is stressful, with two-thirds citing difficulty finding resources and support in the report. Additionally, nearly three-quarters of family caregivers reported concern about their own health.

In a separate initiative from Magnolia Care, The Connecticut Hospice also recently joined the ranks of participants in the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) model.

Hospice and palliative care providers account for more than 40 of the 400 participating health care organizations developing Dementia Care Programs (DCPs), CMS reported. Some of the hospice participants include The Connecticut Hospice, Delaware Hospice, Hospice of the Western Reserve, Providence Home Care and Hospice, Lower Cape Fear Hospice and Hospice of the Piedmont, among others.