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Older adults have historically utilized mental health services at substantially low rates. Unfortunately, though professional, policy, and other recent developments portend an increase in service use, there has been scant empirical attention devoted to the current or recent utilization of mental health treatment by the elderly, and almost nothing is known about the correlates of mental health need and service use among older adults. Accordingly, the present study examined patterns of serious mental illness (SMI), specific mental health syndromes, and service use among older (65+) and younger (18- 64) adults throughout the United States, and the extent to which various factors predict mental health need and the use and magnitude of mental health treatment. In addition, the study examined factors related to unmet need, as well as age group differences in perceived benefit from treatment. The findings reveal that older adults were three times less likely than their younger counterparts to receive any outpatient mental health treatment. Only 2.5% of older individuals utilized any outpatient mental health service in the past year, versus 7.0% of younger adults. The results indicate that the low rate of utilization by older adults may be partly a function of limited subjective mental health need. Prevalence estimates for SMI and all specific mental health syndromes, with the exception of agoraphobia, were markedly lower in the older than the younger cohort. Importantly, though mental health problems appear to be significantly undertreated in older and younger age groups, the study also reveals that those older and younger adults that make it into services typically benefit considerably from treatment. It is hoped that the knowledge yielded by the current study will promote efforts to enhance mental health care access and reduce the long neglected mental health needs of the nation’s elderly population. Several factors related to mental health need and service use were identified in the study that may assist policy, planning, and outreach efforts aimed at increasing service access.

Elderly people are at high risk for conditions associated with inactivity, and lack of motivation is an important factor contributing to this inactivity. It is believed that a dog can provide the necessary motivation to get a senior citizen up and moving because it needs attention as well as someone to feed it and take it for walks. The objective of this five-week prospective cohort study was to determine if registered therapy dogs made available for informal visits to a cohort of retirement community elderly would motivate the subjects to increase their activity levels by comparing the number of steps taken in the presence of the exposure (opportunity to visit with dog) versus steps taken when unexposed (no opportunity to visit with dog). A secondary objective was to measure possible improvements in mental and physical health scores over the course of the study. The steps were measured each week with a pedometer and the happiness and depression scores were obtained through a questionnaire given at the beginning and at the end of the study. Twenty subjects agreed to participate, and there was an increasing trend in the number of steps over calendar weeks, but not an increase with exposure level (number of dog-visits). Happiness (p = .53) and depression (p = .083) scores did not significantly change during the study. Increased step counts each week may have been associated with other motivating factors such as competition among residents and individual desire to achieve higher counts each week.

Taiwan has entered the aging era, after the post-war baby boomers, it is ready to enter the era of the old generation. In recent years, the official statistic has indicated that the proportions of ¡§parents living with their spouse¡¨ are decreasing. Does the statistic indicate that the acceptance of the old generations to live in the elderly residential or nursing home increased? To revaluate the problem, this study distinguished five kinds of living patterns for the old generations scaling with a quantitative life- style pattern, and distributes 392 valid questionnaires for Kaohsiung City's 40-year-old to 59-year-old middle-aged civil servants and teachers. Not only does the research shows the correlations between demographic variables and the preferences of residential patterns, but it also classifies civil servants and teachers of Kaohsiung into four categories¡G ¡§knowledge-LOHOS Group¡¨, ¡§conservative family group¡¨, ¡§easy-going group¡¨ and ¡§active independent group¡¨ . The results showed the accepted level for the five kinds of residential patterns for the old generations have increased; the most favorite and the most likely living type are ¡§living alone or only living with one¡¦s spouse¡¨ and ¡§with children in the same neighborhood¡¨, ¡§elderly residential¡¨ and ¡§live with their children¡¨ are in the second place, and last is the ¡§nursing homes¡¨. And by the independent samples T-test, one-way ANOVA and two variables correlation analysis showed that the preferences of five kinds of residential patterns have significantly related with the ¡§age¡¨, ¡§gender¡¨, ¡§educational level¡¨, ¡§total household monthly income¡¨ , etc. Besides, ¡§active independent group¡¨ is the most acceptable group to stay in elderly residential and nursing homes, but is unwilling to live in the same neighborhood. The ¡§knowledge-LOHOS Group¡¨ like living with their children in the same neighborhood than ¡§active independent group¡¨ do, and it is more likely for the group to live in the same neighborhood than ¡§conservative family group¡¨ do. Finally, this study proposes some recommendations to the operators of the elderly residential and nursing homes, for instance, when the proportion, ¡§with their children in the same neighborhood¡¨ and ¡§living alone or living with their spouse¡¨, have increased for the middle-aged people, it means that the government should have more active and effective strategies in facing the care network of general residential and community. In addition to regard the ¡§active independent group¡¨ as a target market, it also needs to take other groups¡¦ need into account.

<p>Malnutrition är ett välkänt problem i den patientrelaterade vården både i Europa och i resten av världen. Trots detta är malnutrition något som fortfarande förekommer. Vad kan det bero på? Det är viktigt att man bedömer patientens nutritionsstatus rutinmässigt för att kunna förebygga malnutrition. Effekterna av malnutrition kostar samhället mycket pengar och orsakar mänskligt lidande. Syftet med denna studie var att belysa sjuksköterskans ansvar för att förebygga och behandla malnutrition. För att besvara syftet blev valet av metod en litteratur studie. Med hänsyn till vetenskaplig kvalitet granskades tio artiklar. Resultatet av denna studie visar att bedömning, åtgärder, dokumentation och interaktion mellan sjuksköterska och patient är viktig i arbetet med att förebygga och behandla malnutrition. Slutsatsen visar att det är nödvändigt för sjuksköterskorna att få mer utbildning inom malnutrition för att kunna identifiera riskpatienter. Interaktionen mellan sjuksköterska och patient är också en mycket viktig del och måste fungera fullt ut.</p> / <p>Malnutrition is a well known problem in the patient related care in Europe as well as in the rest of the world. Despite this is malnutrition something that still exists. What can that depend on? It is important to judge the patients nutrition status as a routine to be able to prevent malnutrition. The effects of malnutrition cost the community a lot of money and human suffering. The aim of this study was to see the nurse’s responsibility when it comes to prevent and treat malnutrition in his/her daily work. Our choice of method to answer this aim was a literature review. With regard to scientific quality we elected to review ten articles. The results of this study are showing that judging, preventing measures, documentation and interaction between the nurse and patient are important in the work of preventing and treating of malnutrition. The conclusion is that it’s necessary for the nurses to have more education in malnutrition to be able to identify risk patients. The interaction between the nurse and patient is also very important and has to work correctly</p>

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka faktorer som kan vara av betydelse för att möjliggöra konflikthantering i det dagliga arbetet. Vi menar att om möjligheter skapas och initiativ tas från ledningens sida så kan organisationen utvecklas i en positiv riktning. Studien grundar sig delvis på teorier om vikten av att ha en tydlig struktur som uppfattas av medarbetarna som rättvis och att konflikter kan få konsekvenser för hela organisationen. Studien är av kvalitativ design och är utförd inom äldreomsorgen i en kommun i södra Sverige. Analysen visar att faktorer som: tydlig arbetsstruktur, gemensam vision och målsättning, utbildning inom konflikthantering, tydlig och öppen kommunikation, att ta sig tid till konflikthantering, att vara professionell och neutral och att ta ansvar och visa respekt har en betydande inverkan vid konflikthantering. Dessa faktorer kan vara till hjälp för organisationen att utveckla konflikthantering som ett verktyg på arbetsplatsen. Genom att använda sig av en konflikthanteringsmetod utifrån den ledarskapsstil man väljer att använda som chef, kan en rutin utvecklas kring konflikthantering på arbetsplatsen som integrerar medarbetarna. På detta sätt minimeras risken för att konflikter ska eskalera på arbetsplatsen och få förödande konsekvenser. / The aim of this study is to investigate factors which may be of importance to enable conflict management in daily work. We believe that if opportunities are created and initiatives taken by management, the organization will be able to develop in a positive direction. The study is partly based on theories about the importance of clear structure, seen by employees as fair and that conflicts can affect the entire organization. The study is made by a qualitative design and carried out in elderly care in a municipality in southern Sweden. The analysis shows that factors such as: clear working structure, shared vision and goal, education in conflict management, clear and open communication, make time for conflict management, be professional and neutral, and to take responsibility and show respect have a significant impact on conflict management. These factors can be of help for the organization to develop their conflict management as a tool in the workplace. By using a conflict management method based on the leadership style one chooses to use as a manager, then a routine can be developed around conflict management in the workplace that integrates employees. In this way minimizes the risk that conflicts will escalate in the workplace and have devastating consequences.

Bakgrund: Alla personer oavsett ålder har mänskliga behov som behöver tillgodoses för att personen ska kunna känna välbefinnande. Ibland tvingas en individ att flytta till ett särskilt boende på grund av särskilda behov. För en del personer kan det vara svårt att vänja sig att bo på ett särskilt boende, som kan leda till ensamhet och depression. Vården som ges till de äldre ska se till de fysiska, psykiska och sociala behoven. Det är därför relevant att fördjupa sig i vad som skulle kunna underlätta denna förändring, vilket skulle kunna vara en hund.   Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om och i så fall hur hundar påverkar äldre personer som bor på särskilt boende. Metod: En litteratur studie som är baserad på 13 vetenskapliga artiklar. Resultat: Resultatet presenteras i tre kategorier Social påverkan, Psykisk påverkan och Fysisk påverkan. Slutsats: Studierna visade inga samstämmiga resultat, men konstaterande kan göras att hunden har möjlighet att bidra till en vardag där individens behov är i fokus. / Background: Every individual regardless of age have human needs that has to be taken in consideration in order to experience well-being. Sometimes an individual has to move to a nursing home, related to special needs. To some people this can be a hard thing to adjust to and may lead to loneliness and depression. Services offered to the elderly should provide for the physical, psychological and social needs. This is why it’s in our interest to increase the knowledge, to be able to provide a positive change, which could be a dog. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate if and how dogs affect elderly people when they are living in a nursinghome.  Method: A literature study based on the 13 scientific papers. Results: The result presented three categories of Social impact, Psychological impact and Physical impact. Conclusion: The scientific studies showed different results, but assumptions can be made regarding dogs impact on people needs in their everyday life.

The incidence of falls in the elderly population is a growing concern in the healthcare industry as associated morbidity is high, particularly morbidity associated with falls from bed. Bedrails were implemented as a device intended to reduce the incidence of falls from bed; however, recent evidence may indicate that bedrails contribute to adverse events including entrapment and entanglement. As such, efforts have been madeto reduce the use of bedrails and implement alternatives including height adjustable beds and floor mats. An instrumented anthropomorphic test dummy was used in the current study to measure the deceleration profiles of the head, thorax, and pelvis upon impact onto a tile surface or floor mat. The height of the fall was varied by using a height adjustable bed, and the impact site was varied by head or feet first falls. The deceleration profiles were used to determine mean maximum values across repeated trials and to calculate injury criteria at the head (HIC), thorax (TIC), and pelvis (PIC). The mean maximum values were further used to estimate the effect of adding bedrails. Injury severity was then predicted from the injury criteria calculated for the head. From this study, the mean maximum values were found to significantly increase with an increase in height regardless of fall direction. As such, the addition of bedrails consequently increased these values. Furthermore, the use of a floor mat significantly reduced the mean maximum values at the head and pelvis during head first falls and at the head and thorax during feet first falls. Injury criteria were also calculated for each body region and found to be significantly increased with an increase in height and decreased with the use of the floor mat.

Regardless of age or mental capacity, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is the first line of treatment for ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI). This study evaluates the disparities in the use of diagnostic cardiac catheterization and PCI in STEMI patients with dementia. A retrospective analysis was performed of Florida‟s comprehensive inpatient surveillance system for the years 2006-2007 with admission diagnosis of STEMI. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify disparities in the use of intervention among all STEMI patients. A total of 8,331 STEMI patients met the inclusion criteria. Of these, 77% were catheterized and of these 67% received PCI. A total of 605 (7.3%) were demented. Patients with dementia were less likely to be catheterized (RR 0.4, 95% CI 0.3-0.5) and less likely to receive PCI within 24 hours (RR 0.5, 95% CI 0.4-0.6). This study concludes that STEMI patients with dementia were much less likely to receive cardiovascular interventions.

Wearable computing has been in existence as part of our attire for many years, a few examples being the watches, cell phones and MP3 players. Recently, many researchers have been devising ways to incorporate wearable devices seamlessly into our lives with the goal of making them an indispensable part of our daily routines. In this thesis, a new wearable computing device called WARM (Wearable Assistant for Remote Monitoring) for use by the elderly and the handicapped is proposed and its software architecture is defined and described. The physically challenged or the elderly, living on their own, but who require assistance with daily tasks, could retain some of their independence with the use of device like WARM. The software architecture of this proposed device is being designed so that the level and types of assistance necessary will be customized based on the user's needs and their family members can remotely monitor them and be alerted to any issues. In order to maintain extensibility and scalability, a table driven approach is used. The information for reminders is entered through the web-based front end portion of the application which is then written out to relational database tables using stored procedures. The synchronization program, which runs on the user's PC, also uses a series of stored procedure calls to determine while a reminder is to be sent, when contacts should be alerted and finally moves the cleared reminders to the log table for future reporting. The architecture of the proposed WARM device, its salient features, the software interface, the simulation set up and the results are presented.