Summary

Evidence suggests that a high proportion of people with alcohol use disorders experience cognitive impairment;however, there is limited accurate data on how many people are affected.

Long-term heavy alcohol consumption is known to cause problems with cognition through nutritional deficiencies, the effects of liver disease or stoke, brain injury or the direct toxic effects of alcohol on the brain. In many cases, onset of cognitive problems can be gradual and may go unnoticed by the person experiencing them; however, cognitive problems can directly impact an individual’s ability to access specialist support to stop or reduce drinking. For example, people may have a reduced ability to understand, remember and implement clinical advice.

It is thought that many people with alcohol-related cognitive impairment (ARCI) may present at acute hospitals. However, no study has looked at the prevalence of cognitive impairment in all hospital patients with an alcohol use disorder (defined as harmful/high risk drinking or possible dependence) and sought to look more broadly at this group’s presentation to hospital, hospital care, patterns of hospital use and use of services.

What we plan to do

People who have been identified by their clinical team as having a possible alcohol use disorder will be invited to complete some questionnaires on alcohol consumption, cognition, common mental health problems, and service use; plus some questions about personal characteristics, health conditions and behaviours and living situation. Participants will have the option of allowing researchers to access their medical records for their current and previous admissions in the last five years to obtain the diagnoses associated with those admissions.

The questionnaires will demonstrate how many hospital patients with an alcohol use disorder also have cognitive problems, what other health problems people commonly experience, and what types of health and social care services people use. The analysis of people’s health records for their current admission, will demonstrate if their cognitive

problems had been identified by the clinical team prior to their participation in the research, and a review of case notes will show what care and discharge planning is offered to people with alcohol use disorder and cognitive problems. By looking at hospital admissions over the last 5 years, any pattern to the frequency or diagnoses linked to the previous admissions of people with alcohol use disorder and cognitive problems will be identified. It is hoped that these findings could help identify people with these types of problem earlier in future.

Anonymised findings will be shared directly with health and social care providers and commissioners in the region to look at how the needs of people with alcohol use disorder and cognitive impairment can be met. They will also be shared nationally.