Prostate cancer, the leading cause of cancer in men, has positive survival rates and constitutes a challenge to men with its side effects. Studies have addressed the bivaritate relationships between prostate cancer treatment side effects masculinity, partner relationship, and quality of life (QOL). However, few studies have highlighted the relationships among prostate cancer treatment side effects (i.e., sexual dysfunction, urinary incontinence), masculinity, and relationship with the partner together on QOL in men. Most studies were conducted with predominately Caucasian sample of men. Miami is a unique multiethnic setting that hosts Cuban, Columbian, Venezuelan, Haitian, other Latin American and Caribbean communities that were not represented in previous literature. The purpose of this study was to examine relative contributions of age, ethnicity, sexual dysfunction, urinary incontinence, masculinity, and perception of the relationship with the partner on the quality of life in men diagnosed with prostate cancer. Data were collected using self administered questionnaires measuring demographic variables, sexual and urinary functioning (UCLA PCI), masculinity (CMNI), partner relationship (DAS), and QOL (SF-36). A total of 117 partnered heterosexual men diagnosed with prostate cancer were recruited from four urology clinics in Miami, Florida. Men were 67.47 (SD = 8.42) years old and identified themselves to be of Hispanic origin (54.3 %, n = 63). Findings demonstrated that there was a significant moderate negative relationship between urinary and sexual functioning of men. There was a significant strong negative association between men’s perceived relationship with partner and masculinity. There was a weak negative relationship between the partner relationship and QOL. Hierarchal multiple regression showed that the partner relationship (β = -.25, t (91) = -2.28, p = .03) significantly contributed overall to QOL. These findings highlight the importance of the relationship satisfaction in the QOL of men with prostate cancer. Nursing interventions to enhance QOL for these men should consider strengthening the relationship and involving the female partner as an active participant.

In 2010, men who have sex with men (MSM) represented 4% of the population in the United States (US) and accounted for 78% of all new Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections among Hispanic men. Hispanic men who have sex with men (HMSM) accounted for the third largest number of new HIV infections (6,700 cases). This dissertation explored the effects of age, loneliness, substance use, depression, and social support on high risk sexual behaviors that predispose middle aged HMSM to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV infection risk. A sample of 150 urban HMSM aged 40 to 65 were surveyed in this study. Singer’s Syndemics Theory (1996) provided this study’s theoretical framework. Data was analyzed using a variety of parametric and non-parametric statistics. Loneliness, social support, depressive symptoms, alcohol/drug use, and sexual risk behaviors were found to have an influence on HIV infection status in this study. Partner status, religious affiliation and age did have an influence on alcohol use in this study’s participants. Also, participants with increased age had increased depressive symptoms in this study. Lastly, depressive symptoms, substance use, social support, and loneliness did have an influence on sexual risk behaviors in this study’s participants, specifically alcohol use and illicit drug use. The findings from this study should be used to assess, diagnose, plan, implement and evaluate prevention strategies geared to reduce STI and HIV infection in this population. Future research should build on these findings and develop tailored risk reduction interventions addressing HMSM, with particular attention to the understudied age group of the middle aged HMSM.

Many elderly patients visiting the emergency department for minor injuries are not assessed for functional status and experience functional decline 6 months post injury. Identifying such high-risk patients can allow for interventions to prevent or minimize adverse health outcomes including loss of independence. For the purpose of a planned clinical decision rule to identify elderly patients at high risk of functional decline a survey of physicians was conducted. A random sample of 534 Canadian geriatricians, emergency and family physicians was selected with half randomly selected to receive an incentive. A response rate of 57.0% was obtained with 90% of physicians considering a drop in function of at least 2 points on the 28-point OARS ADL scale as clinically significant. A sensitivity of 90% would meet or exceed 90% of physicians' requirements for a clinical decision rule to identify injured seniors at high risk of functional decline 6 months post injury.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2016-04-11T16:55:58Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Chang Chung Sing Waldman.pdf: 929870 bytes, checksum: 9c2405646665a0d26bcfa0c59f66fc38 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-11T16:55:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Chang Chung Sing Waldman.pdf: 929870 bytes, checksum: 9c2405646665a0d26bcfa0c59f66fc38 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-11-30 / Adverse events (AEs) occur in all ages. The elder requires more hospitalizations, with longer length of stay associated with other diseases and daily consumption of several drugs, becoming more vulnerable to AEs. As the main purpose of this study was to analyze the patient safety incidents hospitalized geriatric patients, the strategy adopted was the single case study. Data collection was performed by means of document analysis based on information recorded in medical registries of 221 geriatric patients, aged 60 or older, admitted into the internal medicine infirmary of Mandaqui Complex Hospital, which is located in the North of São Paulo city, during 2014. Results obtained by this research may contribute to support public policies in the health managements, including female (52,9%), predominance of aged 80 to 89 years (41,6%) (p=0,017), presence of 16,3% of seniors with 90 years and more; diseases of the digestive system and circulatory system as a cause of hospitalization showing length of stay and number of AEs above the median for the total of patients; increase in the number of AEs with increasing the length of stay (p<0,0001); incidence rate of 0,61 AEs by patient/day, increasing with age (p<0,0001); presence of comorbidities in 91,4% of the patients and their close relationship with time of hospitalization and frequency of AEs (p=0, 012). The patient safety incidents were classified according to International Classification for Patient Safety (ICPS). We found 4752 incidents, 47,0% of these were of no harm and 53,0% classified as AEs. According to the degree of harm, 45,4% were mild, 47,8% moderate and 0,5% severe harm. In this study, all identified incidents were avoidable and their recognition make possible to plan health specific strategies for elders in different levels of patient health assistance. / Eventos adversos (EAs) ocorrem com qualquer paciente e em qualquer idade, o idoso, necessitando de número maior de internações, com tempo de permanência mais prolongado, associado a outras doenças e consumo diário de vários medicamentos, torna-se mais vulnerável aos EAs. Sendo o objeto dessa pesquisa a análise dos incidentes relacionados à segurança do paciente geriátrico internado, a estratégia adotada foi o estudo de caso. A coleta dos dados foi realizada por meio da análise documental baseada em informações registradas em prontuários de 221 pacientes com idade de 60 anos ou mais, internados em enfermaria de clínica médica do Conjunto Hospitalar do Mandaqui, região norte do município de São Paulo, em 2014. Resultados obtidos por esta pesquisa podem subsidiar políticas públicas no setor saúde, entre eles: sexo feminino (52,9%); predomínio da faixa etária de 80 a 89 anos (41,6%) (p=0,017); presença de 16,3% de idosos com 90 anos e mais; doenças do aparelho digestivo e circulatório como causa de internação apresentam tempo de permanência e número de EAs superiores à mediana para o total de pacientes; aumento no número de EAs à medida que aumenta o tempo de internação (p<0,0001); taxa de incidência de 0,61 EAs por paciente/dia, aumentando com a idade (p<0,0001), razão de taxas (RT=2,3); comorbidades presente em 91,4% dos pacientes e com estreita relação com tempo de internação e frequência dos EAs (p=0,012). Quanto aos incidentes identificados segundo a Classificação Internacional de Segurança do Paciente (ICPS), encontramos 4752 incidentes sendo 47,0% sem dano e 53,0% com dano. Em relação ao grau de danos, identificamos 45,4% com dano leve, 47,8% dano moderado e 0,5 % dano grave. Neste estudo todos os incidentes detectados foram do tipo evitáveis, passíveis de redução e o seu conhecimento sinaliza a necessidade do planejamento de políticas de saúde específicas para a terceira idade nos diversos níveis da assistência à saúde.

Background: The aim of this study was to identify an appropriate screening instrument for the identification of frail elderly patients in a tertiary cancer center. In order to improve cancer care for older patients, the use of a geriatric assessment (GA) has been proposed to identify frail patients or those who are at a higher risk for chemotherapy-related toxicities. In busy clinical routine, an appropriate screening instrument could be used to spare time- and resource-consuming application of GA. Patients and Methods: We administered the Vulnerable Elders Survey (VES-13), G8 questionnaire, and Predictors of Toxicity (POT) as well as a GA at the first visit of 84 consecutive patients at a single Comprehensive Cancer Center. Analysis for patients’ characteristics as well as sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive value (npv) was conducted. Results: The median age of the patients was 73 years (range 63–93 years), 61.9% were male, most (63%) suffered from gastrointestinal tumors, 39.3% had a multiple cancer diagnosis, and 53.6% had metastasis. 30 (35.7%) individuals were classified as ‘frail’ by the GA. Sensitivity of G8 was 38.3%, and the npv was 63.8%. Sensitivity for VES-13 was 57.1%, and npv was 76.3%. Sensitivity of POT was 72.7%, and the npv was 80.6%. Conclusion: For the first time, the VES13, G8, and POT are compared in a sample of older German patients. The POT seems to be a sufficient screening tool to identify frail patients in a tertiary referral cancer center and helps to save time and resources compared with a complete GA.

No description available.

Le taux de décès par suicide augmente avec l’âge dans la plupart des pays du monde, en particulier pour les hommes. En revanche, la prévalence des tentatives de suicide (TS) et des idées suicidaires parmi les personnes âgées est moindre que dans les autres classes d’âge. Les facteurs associés au décès par suicide dans la population générale sont surtout les troubles psychiatriques, y-compris les troubles de l’usage de substances, et les antécédents de TS. En ce qui concerne les personnes âgées, on peut y ajouter des facteurs spécifiques, comme l’isolement, les maladies et douleurs chroniques, ou la perte d’autonomie. La démence ne semble en revanche pas constituer un facteur de risque. Les mesures de prévention du suicide les mieux établies sont basées sur la restriction de l’accès aux moyens, le traitement des troubles psychiatriques et les systèmes de maintien d’un suivi après TS. La formation de sentinelles (« gatekeepers ») est une mesure réputée efficace mais qui n’a pas été évaluée indépendamment d’autres interventions avec un bon niveau de preuve. Des interventions s’adressant aux personnes âgées vivant dans la communauté ont également été développées mais leur efficacité sur les comportements suicidaires a rarement été évaluée avec un bon niveau de preuve. En France, comme dans la plupart des pays européens, environ 10 % des personnes de plus de 75 ans et le tiers des plus de 90 ans vivent dans des établissements hébergeant des personnes âgées (EHPA). Les études actuelles ne permettent pas de dire si le fait d’être institutionnalisé augmente le risque suicidaire, déjà très élevé dans ces classes d’âge. Les EHPA ou EHPAD (Établissement d’Hébergement pour Personnes Âgées Dépendantes) pourraient malgré tout constituer un terrain de choix pour valider des interventions visant à diminuer le risque suicidaire parmi les personnes âgées. Dans ce travail de thèse, nous présentons en premier lieu une revue systématique de la littérature portant sur les interventions visant à diminuer le risque suicidaire en EHPA. Nous n’avons retrouvé dans la littérature que six articles, dont quatre portent sur l’évaluation de la formation de sentinelles parmi le personnel. Aucune étude ne présente l’impact des interventions sur les comportements suicidaires. Nous exposons en deuxième lieu une étude visant à mieux évaluer au cours d’un suivi d’un an, les effets de la formation de sentinelles parmi le personnel de douze EHPAD du département du Rhône par comparaison à douze autres dans lesquels aucune formation particulière sur ce sujet n’avait été menée. Nous montrons que la formation de sentinelles a des impacts très larges, amenant les institutions à développer des stratégies de prévention multimodales et à modifier la prise en charge des résidents suicidaires. Cependant, les résultats sont hétérogènes selon le contexte institutionnel. En dernier lieu, nous proposons une étude qualitative menée auprès de membres du personnel de trois EHPAD visant à analyser les représentations sociales qu’ont ces personnes du suicide des personnes âgées. Nous montrons que ces représentations sont similaires à celles de la population générale et tendent à légitimer et banaliser le suicide des personnes âgées. En conclusion, nous proposons plusieurs pistes de recherche. L’une d’entre elles consisterait à évaluer de manière rétrospective les taux de décès et de TS dans un grand nombre d’EHPA, par exemple sur l’ensemble d’une région, afin que cette évaluation puisse servir de comparaison avec les personnes non-institutionnalisées et surtout de base afin de mesurer l’efficacité d’un programme multimodal de prévention du suicide dans certains EHPAD. Par ailleurs, nous proposons de mieux cerner les facteurs associés aux suicides ou aux TS parmi les résidents d’EHPAD par l’étude exhaustive des données issues du dossier médical et des transmissions infirmières, bien plus riches que pour des personnes non-institutionnalisées / Suicide death rates are increasing with age in most countries worldwide, especially for men. On the contrary, Suicide attempts (SA) and suicidal ideations seem less prevalent in the elderly than in other age groups. Factors associated with death by suicide in the general population are mainly psychiatric disorders, including substance use disorders, and a history of SA. As far as the elderly are concerned, other specific factors play a role, such as loneliness, low social connectedness, physical illness, chronic pain or functional disability. Dementia does not seem to be a factor associated with suicide risk. Evidence based suicide prevention strategies are centred on restricting access to means of suicide, treating psychiatric disorders, and chain of care strategies after SA. Gatekeeper training, though deemed effective, has not been evaluated independently from other strategies and requires further investigations. Interventions targeting the elderly have also been proposed but their effect on suicidal behaviours has not been evaluated with a good level of evidence. In France, as in most European countries, about 10% of elderly aged 75 and over, and a third of those aged 90 and over live in nursing homes. The current scientific literature is still inconclusive on whether living in a nursing home is increasing or decreasing the suicide risk for the elderly, which is already very high. Nursing homes could nonetheless be a setting of choice to study suicide prevention interventions targeting the elderly. In this doctoral thesis, we first propose a systematic review of the scientific literature describing suicide prevention interventions in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. We could include only six studies, four of which evaluate gatekeeper training for the nursing homes staff. We found no study evaluating the impact of interventions on suicidal behaviours. In a second study, we assessed during a one-year follow-up, the impact of gatekeeper training among the staff of twelve nursing homes in the Rhône département compared to twelve others where no specific training on suicidal risk had been organized. We show that gatekeeper training can have broad impacts, leading nursing homes to implement multi-level prevention programmes and improving the way suicidal residents are taken care of. Yet, results are heterogeneous across nursing homes, depending mainly on the institution’s context. In a last study, we used a qualitative study design to assess the social representations that nursing homes employees have on the suicide of elderly people. We show that these social representations are similar to those in the general populations, which are inclined to justify and accept elderly suicide. As a conclusion, we detail some proposals for future research. The first would be to assess retrospectively the number of suicide and SA in a large number of nursing homes, enabling us to compare with elderly suicide and SA rates in the community, and above all to set a baseline for comparing suicide et and SA rates before and after implementing multilevel suicide prevention strategies in some of these nursing homes. The second study could take advantage of the numerous medical and paramedical data collected daily in the nursing homes to better understand factors associated with suicides and SA in the elderly

In der Vergangenheit wurde gezeigt, dass Altersbilder von Zahnmedizinern auf deren Bereitschaft älteren Menschen zahnärztliche Dienstleistungen anzubieten Einfluss nehmen können. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Studie war die Beschreibung der Altersbilder von Zahnmedizin-Studierenden und deren Veränderung während der Teilnahme an einer prägraduellen gerostomatologischen Ausbildung. Ein Frage-bogen wurde an 160 (31 % männliche) Zahnmedizin-Studierende der Universität Leipzig im Alter von 19,2 – 30,5 (Mean 21,7; SD + 2,3) Jahren, jeweils vor Beginn (T1) und beim Abschluss (T2) des gerostomatologischen Kurses, ausgehändigt. Es wurde eine Definition vom Jung- und Altsein sowie von Hoffnungen und Befürch-tungen bezüglich des Alterns erbeten. Das „Semantic Aging Differential“ (SAD) wurde verwendet, um die studentischen Altersbilder in drei Kategorien zu messen. Die statistischen Auswertungen beinhalteten durchschnittliche geschlechtsspezi-fische Altersdefinitionen und Mittelwerte des SAD bei T1 und T2. Das Alter wurde mit einem Beginn zwischen 56 und 64 Jahren definiert. Weibliche Studierende betrachteten bei T1 eine Frau bis zu 35,8 Jahre als jung, für männliche Studierende war eine Frau nur bis 33,5 Jahre jung. Männliche Studierende betrachteten Männer ab 60,1 Jahren und Frauen ab 55,7 Jahren als alt. Befürchtungen angesichts des Alterns bezogen sich hauptsächlich auf die Verschlechterung der Gesundheit und den Verlust naher Angehöriger. Hoffnungen auf Erholung, Ruhe und Gelassenheit waren vorrangig. Die SAD-Ergebnisse waren in allen drei Dimensionen nahezu neutral. Es traten geringfügige Veränderungen zwischen T1 und T2 auf. Schlussfolgernd waren die studentischen Altersbilder ausgewogen. Spezifische Barrieren zur Bereitstellung zahnmedizinischer Versorgung für ältere Menschen, ausgehend von negativen Einstellungen oder Ängsten seitens der Zahnmedizin-Studierenden, wurden nicht identifiziert.

In my thesis I focus on integration of the palliative care in the retirement home describing it through the practical cooperation of two organisations - The Homecoming and Domov Sue Ryder. In the theoretical part I deal with the term of palliative care first, and I also introduce the specifications of the geriatric palliative care. In the subsequent part I describe the residential institutions of social care and professions that are employed in them, as well as, the multi-disciplinary team offering specialised palliative care. I also present the term of shared care existing abroad together with the foreign models of palliative care integration in the retirement homes already used in Austria and Great Britain. The conclusion of the theoretical part explores the actual project of palliative care integration called that is currently taking place in the Czech Republic. In the practical part I offer the description of an actual cooperation, for which I used the notes put down by the employees of The Homecoming after each visit; interviews with the employees of the Sur Ryder home and The Homecoming; a so-called timeline created for each shared care patient; experience from the meetings; my own experience from the meetings and educational activities; formal and informal discussions; guidelines and...

The present study investigated the criterion-based validity of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), the Cognitive Capacity Screening Examination (CCSE), and the Neurobehavioral Cognitive Status Examination (NCSE) in a sample of older adults with suspected cognitive impairment. As cognitive screening tests, the MMSE, CCSE, and NCSE should predict performance relative to a more thorough testing procedure. In the present study, performance on the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery (HRNTB) was employed as the criterion measure. Scores on the General Neuropsychological Deficit Scale (G-NDS), a global performance measure computed from the HRNTB, served as the standard by which to judge the presence of cognitive impairment. The sensitivity, specificity, and predictive value of each screening test, as well as how well each screening test correlated with the G-NDS, were investigated. Results of this investigation found that, although the MMSE, CCSE, and NCSE were all significantly correlated with the G-NDS, only the NCSE demonstrated an appropriate balance between high sensitivity and specificity. When a rigorous neuropsychological evaluation was employed as the criterion standard, the NCSE accurately detected the presence of cognitive impairment: in 82% of the cases. The MMSE and CCSE, however, failed to detect cognitive deficits in approximately 80% of the cases. These findings strongly suggest that the MMSE and CCSE may have limited utility in the identification of cognitive impairment in older adults. The heightened sensitivity of the NCSE appears to be the result of several unigue features of the instrument, including a multidimensional scoring system and a graded series of increasingly difficult items within each ability area. Future studies need to examine the utility of the NCSE in other geriatric settings, as well as with more diverse populations suffering from a variety of organic mental syndromes.