More and more nursing homes are evacuating residents to prepare for incoming hurricanes. It's a trend that started after Hurricane Katrina, when at least 35 elderly New Orleans residents drowned in their nursing home. But a recent study shows that for some populations evacuation has serious consequences.
Before Hurricane Gustav made landfall in 2008 in Louisiana, 119 nursing facilities evacuated residents. Compared to Hurricane Katrina, that's 4 times as many facilities.A recent study looked at how that evacuated population faired during Hurricane Gustav.
Lisa Brown is a professor of aging studies at the University of South Florida and a lead author on the study. In total, more than 5,000 residents evacuated during Gustav. Brown said the portion of those residents who were cognitively intact - those without dementia - weathered the evacuation better.
"It may be that I can explain to you, 'you know this is what's going on. I need you to go do x, y and z to remain safe.' That those people fair better because they understand what's going on around them", said Brown.
The striking finding came when Brown focused in on patients who suffered from severe dementia.
For those residents, the mortality rate increased more than 200% during the first 30 days of being evacuated.
Brown says, the increase may be a result of the general stress that comes with a mass evacuation and the disruption of day-to-day care.
There's no explanation yet since this study was purely numeric. But Brown says that's the next question she'd like to answer.
"We have to unpack that black box and make a determination as to what were the contributing factors and then how might those contributing factors be addressed to reduce future issues and future situations where these disasters occur", Brown said.
Brown says typically we focus on the immediate injuries and fatalities that result from major disasters. She hopes this study will open people's eyes to the far-reaching damage that hurricanes can do.