Articles: aged.
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Boarding, the period in which a patient spends in the emergency department (ED) before admission, may be hazardous to critically ill patients, particularly the elderly. This study investigated the associations of boarding with hospital course, prognosis, and medical expenditure in older patients. ⋯ Extended ED boarding for critically ill medical patients over 65 years old was associated with negative outcomes, including longer ICU/hospital stays, higher treatment costs, and hospital mortality.
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Internal medicine journal · Feb 2024
Development of a list of Australian potentially inappropriate medicines using the Delphi technique.
Older people are at high risk of medicines-related harms. otentially inappropriate medicines (PIMs) list has been developed to assist clinicians and researchers to identify medicines with risks that may potentially outweigh their benefits in order to improve medication management and safety. ⋯ An explicit PIMs list for older people living in Australia has been developed containing 19 drugs/drug classes. The PIMs list is intended to be used as a guide for clinicians when assessing medication appropriateness in older people in Australian clinical settings and does not substitute individualised treatment advice from clinicians.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2024
End-of-life care: A retrospective cohort study of older people who died within 48 hours of presentation to the emergency department.
To describe the characteristics of, and care provided to, older people who died within 48 h of ED presentation. ⋯ Identification of patients at end-of-life (EoL) is not always straightforward; consider recent reduction in independence and recent ED visits/hospital admissions. System-based strategies that span pre-hospital, ED and in-patient care are recommended to facilitate EoL pathway implementation and care continuity.
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2024
ReviewUnderstanding the extent to which PROMs and PREMs used with older people with severe frailty capture their multidimensional needs: A scoping review.
Older people with severe frailty are nearing the end of life but their needs are often unknown and unmet. Systematic ways to capture and measure the needs of this group are required. Patient reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) & Patient reported Experience Measures (PREMs) are possible tools to assist this. ⋯ Existing PROMs and PREMs are not well designed for what we know about the needs of older people with severe frailty. Future research should firstly focus on adapting and validating the existing measures to ensure they are fit for purpose, and secondly on developing a better understanding of how measures are used to deliver/better person-centred care.
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Abnormal lipid profile as one of reversible cardiovascular disease risk factors might be affected by poor sleep quality. ⋯ Our study illustrates that poor sleep quality is a risk factor for poorer lipid profile. Therefore, early behavioral or pharmacological interventions that improve sleep quality are necessary to modify lipid profile in elderly population.