Archives of gerontology and geriatrics
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Arch Gerontol Geriatr · Nov 2010
Assessment of pain, fatigue, sleep and quality of life (QoL) in elderly hospitalized cancer patients.
As the proportion of older adults in the population continues to grow, the number of patients with cancer is expected to increase proportionally. In the previously conducted studies, data on elderly cancer patients were generally compared with the QoL scores of elderly patient group and with the data of non-cancer individuals. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in reported pain, fatigue, sleep problems and QoL between middle-aged and elderly hospitalized patients with cancer. ⋯ A significant relationship was observed in both age groups between the scores of pain, fatigue and sleep problems, and QoL (p<0.05). Elderly hospitalized cancer patients did not demonstrate a distinctive difference in terms of pain, sleep and QoL compared to the younger group. The relationship between pain, fatigue, sleep and QoL should be definitely kept in mind in clinical practice.
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Arch Gerontol Geriatr · Nov 2010
Analysis of the expectations of elderly patients before undergoing total knee replacement.
The opinion of patients expressed in terms of satisfaction is extremely important in any evaluation of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) results. The primary endpoint of this study was to determine the quantitative and qualitative expectations of elderly patients before undergoing TKA. Cross-sectional study of 497 patients over 65 years was performed before TKA. ⋯ There were statistically significant correlations with age (r=-0.321), pain before operation (r=-0.206), expected pain at 6 months (r=-0.206), depressive symptoms (r=-0.180) and the Barthel index (BI) (r=0.154). One can conclude, that the expectations of improvement among patients before TKA are high and may be classified as expectations of improvement of pain, basic functional activities and general well being. Age, pain intensity and presence of depression correlate inversely with the amount of expectations.