Journal of general internal medicine
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Despite multiple attempts to document and quantify the danger of venous thromboembolism (VTE) following prolonged travel, there is still uncertainty about the magnitude of risk and what can be done to lower it. ⋯ All travelers, regardless of VTE risk, should avoid dehydration and frequently exercise leg muscles. Travelers on a flight of less than 6 hours and those with no known risk factors for VTE, regardless of the duration of the flight, do not need DVT prophylaxis. Travelers with 1 or more risk factors for VTE should consider graduated compression stockings and/or LMWH for flights longer than 6 hours.
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For patients to experience the benefits of total joint arthroplasty (TJA), primary care physicians (PCPs) ought to know when to refer a patient for TJA and/or optimize nonsurgical treatment options for osteoarthritis (OA). ⋯ PCP knowledge with respect to guideline-concordant care for OA could be improved, specifically in deciding when to consider TJA versus optimizing nonsurgical options. Moreover, the perception of the success rate of TJA may influence a clinician's decision making.
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Multicenter Study
Alcohol consumption among older adults in primary care.
Alcohol misuse is a growing public health concern for older adults, particularly among primary care patients. ⋯ The majority of participants were nondrinkers; among alcohol users, at-risk drinkers did not differ significantly from moderate drinkers in their characteristics or for the 3 health parameters evaluated. In contrast, heavy drinking was associated with depression and anxiety and less social support, and heavy drinking combined with binge drinking was associated with depressive/anxiety symptoms and perceived poor health.
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Despite numerous controlled trials, clinical practice guidelines and cost-effective analyses, controversy persists regarding the appropriate management strategy for adult pharyngitis. In this perspective, we explore this controversy by comparing two competing clinical guidelines. Although the guidelines appear to make widely diverging recommendations, we show that the controversy centers on only a small proportion of patients: those presenting with severe pharyngitis. We examine recently published data to illustrate that this seemingly simple problem of strep throat remains a philosophical issue: should we give primacy to relieving acute time-limited symptoms, or should we emphasize the potential societal risk of antibiotic resistance? We accept potentially over treating a minority of adult pharyngitis patients with the most severe presentations to reduce suffering in an approximately equal number of patients who will have false negative test results if the test-and-treat strategy were used.
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Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are included in several national pneumococcal vaccination recommendations whereas asthma patients are not. The objective of this study was to evaluate pneumonia-related hospitalization risk in patients with COPD or asthma and vaccination impact. ⋯ This study supports the value of vaccinating COPD patients; however, the value of vaccination for asthma patients is less certain.