NCT06819852 · NOT YET RECRUITING
Acute Hospital Care at Home for People Living With Dementia
This trial tests whether people with moderate or severe dementia can receive acute hospital-level care at home instead of being admitted to an inpatient hospital. When they show up in the emergency department, enrolled patients are randomized to either home-based hospital care or standard inpatient care. It is a Phase NA trial, meaning this is a practical care-delivery study rather than a drug test — it is measuring whether the home model is safe and effective compared to usual care.
You may qualify if
- Diagnosis of moderate or severe dementia (as ascertained by the Quick Dementia Rating System; QDRS)
- Resides in a private or assisted living residence with or nearby (\<15min travel time) to a family caregiver
- Resides within the Mass General Brigham (MGB) home hospital catchment area
- Has had at least 1 hospitalization in the last 12 months.
You're excluded if
- Hospitalized in the last 30 days
- No functioning utilities, such as no working heat (October-April), no running water, or no electricity.
- Resides in skilled nursing facility
- Resides in group home
- Domestic violence screen positive
- In police custody
- Family caregiver unable to initiate or maintain communication with care team
- End-stage renal disease on hemodialysis
- On methadone requiring daily pickup of medication
- Active substance use disorder, without functioning treatment plan
- Psychiatric diagnosis that would prohibit successful home hospital care
- Acute delirium without explanation or without the ability to manage at home
- Patients with cancer requiring consistent hospital-based treatments
- Cannot ambulate to bedside commode with assistance present in the home (if different from baseline), unless home-based aides are available
The sponsor's own eligibility wording, lightly reformatted. The study team makes the final eligibility decision — worth discussing with your doctor.
Eligibility criteria as of 2026-08-12