Age and ageing
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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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Multi-morbidity and polypharmacy increase the risk of non-trivial adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in older people during hospitalization. Despite this, there are no established interventions for hospital-acquired ADR prevention. ⋯ In this trial, uptake of software-generated medication advice to minimize ADRs was poor and did not reduce ADR incidence during index hospitalization.
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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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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.