The Journal of family practice
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After analyzing its first year of operation, a homecare hospice staff describes its patient statistics (n = 70), its evaluations received from the patients' families, its inability to accept many referrals (n = 150), and its cost analysis. The mean patient longevity in the program was 42 days for a cost of $65 per patient day. ⋯ Many referrals were not accepted into the caseload because contact came so late that the patient died before processing could be completed. The data indicate that the hospice program was urgently sought by the public and that the hospice reported in this study will be able to provide homecare services at a cost which is competitive with skilled nursing home care.
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Coronary arterial spasm has been postulated to be a cause of myocardial ischemia for over 100 years. It was not until the work of Prinzmetal et al in 1959, however, that major clinical attention and research began to be addressed to the role of vasospasm in the manifestations of ischemic heart disease. ⋯ Symptomatic arrhythmias, including sinus bradycardia, heart block, and ventricular tachyarrhythmias, have been documented to complicate coronary vasospasm. Given the potential importance of coronary arterial spasm in so many different ischemic heart disease syndromes, the development of therapeutic agents that may prevent spasm has obvious clinical importance.