Around the globe the number of older people in relation to the rest is constantly growing. As a result, medical and care facilities cannot handle the growing number of patients. Therefore, elderly in-home assistance gets more attention an importance. Due to issues regarding memory, physical strength and reduced self-assessment, old people face a lot of challenges in accomplishing their activities of daily living. This thesis is meant to address these problems by analysing the required infrastructure of a home-care facility as well as the arising issues regarding used components, especially wireless sensors. After the analysis, a prototype of a home-care system is designed and implemented. Furthermore, the issue of energy consumption of the used wireless sensor node is addressed by modifying the intelligence of the used sensor. After that, the design and components of the prototype used for the energy consumption analysis is explained, together with the programming structure of the sensor nodes used in this thesis. Thereupon, the results are of the simulations are discussed and compared with the authors ‘expectations. Finally the overall outcomes of the thesis are analysed and summed up, followed by a short outlook of further possible improvements and developments.

Det övergripande syftet med studien har varit att skildra hur personal på fyra kommunala äldreboenden definierat begreppet värdegrund samt hur de tillämpat den i det praktiska arbetet med de äldre. I studien har begreppen KASAM, Empowerment samt en problematisering av värdegrundskomponenterna använts för att analysera resultaten av interjuverna. Resultat av studien visade på att det finns en enighet bland personalen i hur man definierar värdegrundskomponenter. De gav dock samtidigt uttryck för komplexiteten i att komponenterna kan ha flera betydelser, vara nära besläktade och i vissa fall motsägelsefulla. Personalen såg på begreppen som mål för sitt arbete och menade på att uppfyllelse av målen genererar en bättre hälsa och välbefinnande för den äldre. I tillämpning av värdegrundskomponenterna talade personalen om främst två sätt de arbetade utifrån, motivering och aktivering. Motivering innebar att utifrån de boendes eget självbestämmande ska personalen uppmuntra dem till självständighet. Aktivering i sin tur hängde i hop med motivering och innebar att den boende har kontakt med sina anhöriga och sin omgivning likväl som ett deltagande i aktiviteter som personalen försåg de boende med efter deras önskemål. / The pupose of this bachelor´s thesis have been to depict how staff from four diffrent municipal nursing homes define the concept of value base and how they apply this in their practical work with the elderly. In the study the scentific concepts KASAM and Lee´s definition of Empowerment in addition to a problematisation of the value base components have been used to analyze our qualitative interviews. The results of study showed that there is a consensus among the staffon how to define the value base components. At the same time they gave, however, expression of a complexity in the components and the fact that they may be closely related and in some case contradictive. The staff saw the components as a goal for their work and said that achieving these goals generated a better health and well-being of the elderly. In applying the value base staff talked about two main ways they worked on. These were motivation and activation. The reasoning was that by the residents own self-determination the staff should encourage them to independence. Activiation in turn was related to the staff motivating the elderly. This meant that the residents have contact with their families, their enviornment as well as participation in activities that staff provided the residents based on the elderlys own wishes.

Syftet med litteraturstudien var att beskriva vilka faktorer som i omvårdnadsforskningen beskrivs som bidragande faktorer till akut delirium. Syftet var vidare att beskriva vilka omvårdnadsåtgärder som omvårdnadsforskningen tar upp som kan minska risken för uppkomst av akut delirium. Resultatet baserades på vetenskapliga artiklar som söktes i följande databaser: Elin@dalarna, BlackwellSynergy, PubMed och EBSCO host. Följande sökord användes: delirium, acute, elderly, nursing, patients, caring, management, confusional state, needs. Artiklarna granskades enligt en granskningsmall med avseende på vetenskaplig kvalité. Betydande riskfaktorer för akut delirium var ålder, flera samtidiga sjukdomar, antalet mediciner och typ av medicin. Förutom att genomgå operation var också många åtgärder, framför allt invasiva åtgärder, tidigt under sjukhusvistelsen riskfaktorer för akut delirium. Även flera rumsbyten var en riskfaktor. Viktiga åtgärder för att förebygga akut delirium var psykiatrisk konsultation, tekniker för att underlätta orientering, emotionellt stöd, patientundervisning och anhörigundervisning, patientorientering, fysisk kontakt med patient samt att upprätta kontakt med kurator.

Facing the ageing society, this study aimed to understand the needs of middle-aged and elderly people in participating social service work and to further investigate their attitudes, willingness and reasons for participation. The subjects were 585 middle-aged and elderly citizens enrolled in the elderly schools located in the Kaohsiung area. The survey lasted from November 2009 to March, 2010. The subjects were asked to respond to the Attitudes towards Social Service Participation Scale (the ASSPS) which consists of five subscales: the Autonomy in Social Service Participation, the Altruism in Social Service Participation, the Meaningfulness in Social Service Participation, the Motivation in Social service Participation, and the Accomplishments in Social Service Participation. The Cronbach £\ reliability of ASSPS was .95 and the reliabilities of its subscales ranged between .80 and .93. The results showed that the mean score of male subjects was higher than that of females in the ASSP, the Meaningfulness in Social Service Participation Subscale, and the Motivation in Social Service Participation Subscale. In view of willingness in social service participation, subjects with a college or above degree exhibited higher willingness than those subjects of elementary education level or under. Besides, participants retired from farming, labor, business, military, public service, and education sectors expressed higher willingness than those doing housekeeping jobs. The results of this study provided references for utilizing middle-aged and elderly labor force and planning social service programs.

Objectives: This Study wanted to analysis the characteristics of the elder adult who had hospitalized with pneumonia. We also evaluated the factors that will affect the unexpected readmission in elderly pneumonia patients. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study design. The study data was collected 341 pneumonia patients who have hospitalized in a general teaching hospital in Kaohsiung city from year 2009 to 2010. The study population was divided into two groups, the sample size of the old group (age >= 65yrs), and the young group (age < 65yrs) was 173 and 168, respectively. The methods of stepwise multiple logistic regressions were needed to evaluate the association between aging and different days of unplanned readmission in adult pneumonia patients. Results: All the 341 adult pneumonia patients, we found 613 male and 926 female. The demography characteristic of the study subjects, the means of age was 61.9yrs (s.d. = 19.3yrs), and BMI was 23.4 kg/m2 (s.d. = 4.5 kg/m2). The percentage of ICD-9-CM that code 486 was 95.6%. Most patients were community-acquired pneumonia (98.8%), hospitalized from emergency room (85.3%), and admission in general wards (92.7%). The unplanned readmission within 14/30 days, 60 days, and 90days were 9.1%, 11.7%, and 15.0%, respectively. The significant factors that were associated with readmission within 14 days include age, Hb, hospitalized days, hypertension, and other disease. When we used the multiple logistic regression analysis to adjust the other variables, only age still significant with readmission within 14 days (the crude OR of the old group was 4.561, adjusted OR was 2.714, 95% CI of OR from 1.002 to 7.353). In the stepwise multiple logistic regression models, the variable that was associated with readmission with 14 or 30 days were age (>= 65yrs, OR = 3.025), WBC (>=10750 mm3, OR=2.917), and Hb (>=12.4 g/dL, OR=0.390). We remain the elderly subjects to evaluate the factor that will influence readmission states. In all the stepwise logistic regression models, we found the experience with used endotracheal tube in the hospitalized period were the significant increases the readmission rate within 14 or 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days. Conclusion: In our study shows that the situations of unexpected readmission in pneumonia patients were strong association with aging. We suggest that the indicator of medical quality should be adjusted before we comparison the readmission rate in the different institute. The major factors that will be associated to affect the readmission states were endotracheal tube used (significant with 14 or 30 days readmission rate), CRP level (significant with 60 days and 90 days readmission rate), and Hb level (significant with 60 days and 90 days readmission rate).

This study investigated the influencing factors to retirement home decisions in Taiwan. The effect of socio-demographic variables, health conditions, and needs to characteristics were examined. The objective of study was people whose age over 50 in Taiwan. The questionnaires were collected by mail and there were 755 valid samples. The findings from this study include the followings. First, using hierarchical logistic regression, the major predictors to decision to retirement home are: 1.insurance condition; 2.independence and autonomy; 3.comfort and convenience. Second, medical facilities and services are not major predictors to retirement home decision in Taiwan. This is quite different from the findings in America and European countries. The possible reason is that there are abundant medical resources and the medical accessibility is high in Taiwan.

The purpose of this study was to identify benefits and constraints associated with the use of urban parks by a sample of elderly in Hong Kong. Before studying these topics, self-perception of aging of the elderly in Hong Kong was explored. In-depth interviews were conducted with 13 individuals inside and 12 outside the Tsuen Wan Jockey Club Tak Wah Park. Purposive sampling was used to select the sample. The interviews were semi-structured, based on an interview guide of open-ended questions. Results of the study suggested that although there are some differences in explanations of aging among different countries, some aging models and theories which have been developed in western countries can be employed to interpret the aging phenomenon in Hong Kong. Several constraints and health-related social and psychological benefits of attending a park were reported by the sample. Heterogeneity of leisure constraints among different age cohorts of the elderly was found in the study. Although similarities were found between the benefits reported in this study and those reported in western countries, the magnitude of benefits received from visiting parks may be different because of the different characteristics of elderly in different countries.

Objective¡G Influenza is an important public health problem, and may seriously damage the elderly population. Although influenza vaccination is a safe, and can significantly reduces morbidity and influenza -related complication mortality in elderly people, however, the influenza vaccination rate did not reach expected goals. Therefore, to explore the potential factors that affect the vaccination rate becomes a critical research question. The purpose of this study was to apply the Health Belief Model, which includes demographic, health state and healthy behaviour, knowledge about influenza and influenza vaccine, perceived susceptility, perceived seriousness, perceived benefit and barrier, and cues to action variables, to understand factors motivating the community elderly people to receive influenza vaccination. Design: The sampling designs were stratified and systematic sampling with total 700 sample. During June 2007 , a structured questionnaire was sent to the elderly people¡]¡Ù65 years¡^in Kaohsiung city¡C Result: The male and female sample distribution rates were equally in 50%, average age was 72.87 years old and 59.6% elderly people had chronic disease (such as hypertension, heart disease and diabetes). Chi-square tests showed that ¡§chronic disease¡¨, ¡§health examination¡¨, ¡§always seek care from specific physician¡¨, ¡§exercise ¡§, ¡§ recognize about influenza and influenza vaccination¡¨, ¡§ perceived seriousness¡¨, ¡§ perceived benefit and barrier¡¨, were significantly associated with having ever been vaccinated. Logistic regression results indicated that ¡§think the influenza vaccination can effectively prevent influenza¡¨, ¡§regular health examination¡¨, ¡§cues to action¡¨ and ¡§perceived barriers¡¨ were found to be the significant predictors of acceptance of influenza vaccination. Conclusions¡GThe study results indicated that health care worker¡¦s attitude about influenza and influenza vaccination will directly influence community elderly people's cognition. Therefore, by educating the health care worker about influenza seriousness and the vaccination effectiveness may successfully promote vaccination rate. Through health education activities in the community, it may increase correct cognition about influenza and the benefit of vaccination. In addition, the health department needs to strengthen the health policy marketing in order to increase influenza vaccinations rate, reduce morbidity and influenza -related complication mortality.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International.

Organisatoriska, ekonomiska och individuella faktorer har betydelse för huruvida omsorgspersonalen har intentioner till att lämna sin arbetsplats eller faktiskt sluta på arbetsplatsen. Syftet med studien var att finna faktorer som påverkar omsorgspersonal att stanna eller lämna sin arbetsplats, samt hur vårdyrket inom äldreomsorgen kan göras mer attraktivt. Sexton kvinnor inom äldreomsorgen i Mellansverige intervjuades. Systematiska jämförelser mellan dem som hade för avsikt att stanna och dem som hade för avsikt att sluta på sin arbetsplats utfördes, även en eftersökning av faktorer som kunde göra yrket mer attraktivt genomfördes. Faktorer som att utvecklas var avgörande för de som hade för avsikt att lämna och kollegorna samt ett omväxlande arbete var viktigt för de som hade för avsikt att stanna. Medias negativa skildring av äldreomsorgen samt lönen rapporterades påverka vårdyrkets attraktionskraft. Framtida undersökningar bör fokusera på hur media påverkar möjligheten att attrahera ny personal inom vårdyrken.