Age and ageing
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informal carers of people with dementia are at greater risk of anxiety and depressive disorders if they find caregiving to be a burden. The aim of this study was to use a network analysis of cross-sectional data to investigate the relationships between anxiety and depressive symptoms in family carers of older people with dementia who experience burden. ⋯ this network analysis of depressive and anxiety symptoms in overburdened family carers provides important insights as to what symptoms may be the most important targets for behavioural interventions.
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Common symptoms of pandemic coronavirus disease (COVID-19) include fever and cough. We describe a 94-year-old man with well-controlled schizoaffective disorder, who presented with non-specific and atypical symptoms: delirium, low-grade pyrexia and abdominal pain. He was given antibiotics for infection of unknown source, subsequently refined to treatment for community-acquired pneumonia. ⋯ A postmortem throat swab identified COVID-19 infection. He was treated in three wards over 5 days with no infection control precautions. This has implications for the screening, assessment and isolation of frail older people to COVID-specific clinical facilities and highlights the potential for spread among healthcare professionals and other patients.
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to provide a preliminary estimate of the effectiveness of the prevention of delirium (POD) system of care in reducing incident delirium in acute hospital wards and gather data for a future definitive randomised controlled trial. ⋯ based on these findings, a definitive trial is achievable and would need to recruit 5220 patients in 26 two-ward hospital clusters. Trial registration: ISRCTN01187372. Registered 13 March 2014.
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delirium is a frequent complication of hospital admission for older people and can be reduced by multicomponent interventions, but implementation and delivery of such interventions is challenging. ⋯ the trial was designed as a pragmatic evaluation, and the findings of medium intervention fidelity are likely to be generalisable to delirium prevention in routine care and provide an important context to interpret the trial outcomes.