Harvard Injury Control Research Center
Our mission is to reduce the societal burden of injury and violence through surveillance, research, intervention, evaluation, outreach, dissemination, and training.
Alzheimer’s Disease
An anonymous internet convenience sample of 82 caregivers of persons with dementia reported that while 32% had spoken with a healthcare provider for advice about driving, only 9% had about firearm safety—yet the people they were caring for were more likely to have a gun in the home than they were to drive.
Betz ME, Ranney ML, Knoepke CE, Johnson RL, Pallin R, Miller M, Wintemute GJ. Dementia and firearms: an exploratory survey of caregiver needs. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2019. 34:1981-83.
Data from our 2019 National Firearm Survey found that 31% of patients with dementia had access to firearms in the home, yet only 5% of their caregivers had ever had a health professional talk to them about firearm safety.
Betz ME, Azrael D, Johnson RL, Knoepke CE, Ranney ML, Wintemute GJ, Matlock D, Suresh K, Miller M. Views of firearm safety among caregivers of people with Alzheimer disease and related dementias. JAMA Network Open. 2020 3:e207756.
This short paper describes the development of a Decision-Aid for patients with dementia to help caregivers understand various strategies to improve safety with regard to firearms, motor vehicles, and home safety.
Polzer E, Nearing K, Knoepke CE, Matlock DD, Azrael D, Siry BJ, Meador L, Betz ME. ‘Safety in Dementia’: Development of an online caregiver tool for firearm, driving, and home safety. Journal of the American Geriatric Society. 2020; 68:2137-2139.