Age and ageing
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To determine the prevalence of carotid sinus hypersensitivity and orthostatic hypotension in older patients with non-accidental falls attending an accident and emergency department. ⋯ Almost half of the cognitively normal older patients attending accident and emergency with non-accidental falls have carotid sinus hypersensitivity, emphasizing that a post-fall intervention strategy should include carotid sinus studies.
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the Mini Nutritional Assessment is a validated clinical tool for the assessment of nutritional status in older people. Moderate to severe malnutrition is common in elderly patients in hospital and is associated with a poor outcome. ⋯ Poor nutritional status as measured by the Mini Nutritional Assessment was associated with increased in-hospital mortality, a higher rate of discharge to nursing homes and a longer length of stay.
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to develop and implement guidelines on the appropriate use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which would ensure patient involvement in decision-making about cardiopulmonary resuscitation whenever possible but without offering illusory choices where resuscitation was unlikely to succeed. ⋯ it is difficult to involve acutely ill elderly patients in cardiopulmonary resuscitation decision-making. Limited cardiopulmonary resuscitation is a useful option for patients, relatives and doctors.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
A pharmacy discharge plan for hospitalized elderly patients--a randomized controlled trial.
to investigate the effectiveness of a pharmacy discharge plan in elderly hospitalized patients. ⋯ we found no evidence to suggest that the co-ordinated hospital and community pharmacy care discharge plans in elderly patients in this study influence outcomes.
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the older population is the most medicated. Despite high drug usage, older people are generally excluded from the research underpinning new drug development. This means that drugs are prescribed to older people with very little understanding of how they are likely to metabolize them. More research is needed to investigate the possible effects of ageing on the biotransformation of drugs. We therefore undertook a cross-sectional study examining the effect of age on the activities of benzoylcholinesterase, butyrylcholinesterase, acetylcholinesterase and aspirin esterase. ⋯ age per se is not associated with reductions in the activities of esterase enzymes.