Articles: chronic.
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To compare the relative change in the use of clinical preventive services, prevalence of chronic disease, and share uninsured among White, Black, and Hispanic adults before and after the introduction of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). ⋯ The ACA is associated with a reduction in baseline differences in the use of some clinical preventive services, chronic disease prevalence, health insurance coverage, and out-of-pocket spending. Continued efforts to promote prevention and further expansions of coverage would appear to pay dividends.
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Background and Objectives: Osteoporosis and anemia are prevalent among chronic kidney disease stage 5D (CKD stage 5D) patients. Osteoblasts are known as the niche cells of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and stimulate HSCs to form blood-cell lineages within bone marrow microenvironments. We hypothesized that an inverse correlation may exist between mean corpuscular volume (MCV), a surrogate for ineffective hematopoiesis, and bone mineral density (BMD) in the CKD stage 5D population. ⋯ Conclusions: The present study found significant inverse correlations between MCV and BMD at specific body locations in patients on dialysis. A decreased T-score was also found to be associated with macrocytosis after adjustments for confounding variables. However, direct evidence for the causative etiology was lacking.
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Functional improvement is a critical outcome for individuals living with chronic pain. Graded exposure treatment (GET) has been associated with statistically significant improvements in functional outcomes for youth with chronic pain by targeting pain-related fear and avoidance. ⋯ Examining reliable and clinically meaningful change (vs. statistical significance alone) provides a way to examine treatment response to an intervention and to enhance the interpretability of findings, helping to bridge the gap between clinical trials and clinical practice by providing guidelines for interpretation.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Mar 2022
ReviewThe complications of opioid use during and post-intensive care admission: A narrative review.
Opioids are a commonly administered analgesic medication in the intensive care unit, primarily to facilitate invasive mechanical ventilation. Consensus guidelines advocate for an opioid-first strategy for the management of acute pain in ventilated patients. ⋯ Consequently, there is a challenge of optimising analgesia while minimising these adverse effects. This narrative review will discuss the characteristics of opioid use in the intensive care unit, outline the potential short-term and long-term adverse effects of opioid therapy in critically ill patients, and outline a multifaceted strategy for opioid minimisation.