Last week, as my 2-year-old struggled to breathe, I took her to the hospital, where she was admitted for a day and a half. She seems to have recovered her bronchiolitis more quickly than I have. But one part of the experience made me smile: The pediatric ER’s nebulizer mask was decorated like a dinosaur. My toddler was too sick to appreciate it, but that little detail showed me that we were in a place that understood and cared for children’s needs.

I thought about that in the context of a First Opinion published this week, in which Gabriela Khazanov wrote about how emergency departments are poorly equipped to help patients with dementia like her mother. “Millions of patients with dementia, most elderly like my mother, end up in emergency departments each year, and likely many more avoid them altogether because of their potential to worsen rather than improve symptoms,” she writes. After a visit to the ER, her mother’s outpatient neurologist told her, “Do not bring a patient with dementia to the emergency room unless she is turning blue.”

As the number of Americans with dementia increases, Gabriela argues, ERs need to become better equipped to address their unique needs.

Recommendation of the week: “All in Her Hands,” by Audrey Blake, is the third and final installment in a trilogy about a 19th-century female surgeon in London. In the newest book, our heroine is trying to mend a rift between physicians and midwives amid a cholera outbreak. Parts of it are quite anachronistic, but it’s a very enjoyable read.