Dr Eileen Burns looks at how Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment, better communication and palliative care principles can improve the quality of end of life care for older people, and asks: what constitutes a good death?
Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards are protections for adults who lack mental capacity to consent to, say, admission to hospital or a care home for treatment or care. Caroline Cooke and Premila Fade assess why they are being reviewed and the Law Commission's proposals.
Older patients frequently have dysphagia resulting from acute or chronic illnesses. Dysphagia management requires a collaborative approach because of the complexities of older patients' needs, and geriatricians have an important role to play in overseeing this condition.
Presentations from our recent conference, Living and dying well with frailty which took place on the 6th March 2018
People with dementia are not children. They are adults with a lifetime’s experience. Yet they are not entirely dissimilar. They are vulnerable and they can be as distressed and disoriented as a child.
Clinical guidelines on intravenous fluid therapy in adults in hospital, managing medicines in care homes and medicines optimisation, from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Delirium can be confused with dementia but is potentially reversible if the causes are identified. Transient loss of consciousness, or blackouts, are very common, but diagnosis of cause is often inaccurate. NICE quality standards on each of these conditions.
Ten per cent of patients admitted to hospital as an emergency stay more than two weeks, using 55 per cent of all hospital bed days, and 80 per cent of that group are aged over 65 years. The average age of a hospital inpatient is over 80.
Clinical guidelines and tailored resources from NICE on supporting people with dementia, mental wellbeing of older people in care homes and a video illustrating the NICE quality standards for mental wellbeing in care homes.
Feeling anxious from time to time is a normal human experience. When someone is anxious they might experience feelings of tension, nervousness, heightened awareness, fear or uncertainty, dry mouth and throat, and tightness in the chest.
Physical health problems, particularly chronic health problems such as obesity, diabetes and smoking-related illnesses, are more common in people with long-term mental illness.
What is mental capacity? What do we really mean when we ask if a patient has (or lacks) capacity? Capacity often depends on context. The ethical conundrum of mental capacity unravelled.
Read our international journal publishing refereed original articles and commissioned reviews on geriatric medicine and gerontology