‘Where are our patients?’: Three days of searching during the LA fires Most are older than 80, about half have dementia — and I had no idea where many were

https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/27/los-angeles-fires-elderly-patients-assisted-living-dementia-doctors/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--ymR8g4o9QV7j9SEGysU8k5wNuUoJuUmR2SX_28d1t8Gzh8oChqWc6Kr_mjN5IuXS94m6xmasmpGiJELGOmHV4ej-0qA&_hsmi=344205424&utm_content=344205424&utm_source=hs_email Gabriel Waterman is a primary care physician who helps to run a Los Angeles-area program providing services to thousands of older adults in assisted-living facilities and nursing homes. Most of his patients are at least 80 years old, and half have dementia. So as fires spread across the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods, he worried about how his patients and traveling staff members were faring. When he saw news coverage of a Pasadena nursing home being evacuated, he wondered — “Were those our patients?” In a new First Opinion essay, Waterman details three days of harrowing work to find and treat patients during the raging fires. Read his on-the-ground account.