Geriatric nursing
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Many elders suffer from chronic pain resulting from osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee or hip. This review identifies useful pain measures for assessing OA. ⋯ Generic pain measures, the verbal descriptor scale, and the 21-point box scale, also are discussed. Because knee/hip OA is characterized by pain that is activated during or aggravated by certain activities, disease-specific pain scales that measure pain associated with these various activities are more effective than a generic pain scale.
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Long-term care (LTC) facilities usually contract with hospice agencies to provide palliative (comfort) care to their terminally ill residents, yet only 1% of nursing home residents enroll in hospice care. Integrating hospice services with nursing home services presents many challenges. ⋯ The mean score on the Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing was 12.3 of a possible 20 (62%, SD = 2.7). Implications for practice include a critical need for in-service education on end-of-life content for practicing LTC nurses and integration of such content in all curricula for future nurses.
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This article describes the continued evolution of the Geriatric Resource Nurse Model at the University of Virginia, one of the original NICHE (Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders) sites established in 1994. The model developed slowly, unit by unit, a few nurses at a time, and has evolved with a multidisciplinary focus. Flexibility, mentoring relationships, a core curriculum, additional stimulating educational offerings, and a strong leadership team have been key influences on sustainability and growth.
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The 30-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), the GDS Short Form, and the Mood Assessments from the Minimum Data Set versions 1 and 2 were completed for 50 nursing home elders. The purpose of the study was to evaluate agreement among these measures of depression, with the GDS considered the gold standard. Although the GDS Short Form performed highly consistently with the GDS, the correlations of the MDS mood assessments with the GDS were relatively low. The results are discussed in the context of the characteristics that surround the use of the MDS, and recommendations are made for improving methods of detecting depression among nursing home elders.
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Terminal restlessness, sometimes called agitated delirium, is a common occurrence at the end of life. This type of delirium may appear as thrashing or agitation, involuntary muscle twitching or jerks, fidgeting or tossing and turning, yelling, or moaning. Among older adults, especially those in long-term care situations, the delirium may not appear to be very different from previous episodes observed when the resident experienced an infection, exacerbation of a chronic condition, anxiety, pain, or adverse drug reactions. ⋯ Therefore, the effective management of terminal restlessness requires a different approach than the usual care of residents with delirium. For many nurses, this responsibility means adding new clinical knowledge and skills to their practice inventories. This article provides an overview of terminal restlessness, offers assessment guidelines for older adults in long-term care situations who are dying, and describes comfort and symptom management strategies for these individuals.