This section of the BGS guidance on end of life care in older people examines the management of acute deterioration in the context of frailty at the end of life.
This position statement sets out the British Geriatrics Society recommendations for assessment of older patients being considered for emergency laparotomy.
This brief guidance was developed by Alistair Burns, National Clinical Director for Dementia at NHS England/Improvement. It is applicable to those with dementia and anyone with cognitive impairment resulting from conditions which affect the brain.
This page brings together resources and information for any clinician or carer who finds themselves faced with providing care at the end of life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This consensus advice has been drawn up by experts from the BGS, EDA and RCPsych. It should be used in conjunction with local policy and governance practice employed within your own organisation.
Scottish Quality & Safety Fellows, NHS Scotland, have put together some easy-to-follow tips on stress, coping and resilience during this difficult time which they have kindly allowed us to share.
The BGS Frailty and Urgent Care Meeting 2019 was held on 15 February 2019 in London.
The Royal College of Physicians Falls and Fragility Fracture Audit Programme (FFFAP) has developed a series of patient and public centred resources to support better care.
Alexandra Feast describes a study which highlights how people with dementia experienced pain for a substantial part of their admission without being able to communicate this pain. It explores the relationship between pain, dementia and delirium.
General hospitals are designed to deliver safe, effective and often highly technological care. For people with dementia, however, these unfamiliar clinical environments can be frightening, disorientating and a threat to independence and wellbeing.
The aim of the "Behind Closed Doors" campaign is to raise awareness that people, whatever their age and physical ability, should be able to choose to use the toilet in private in all care settings.
The rate of older people undergoing surgical procedures is increasing faster than the rate of population ageing . Despite this progress, older surgical patients remain at increased risk.
Can it be used by nurses to determine whether staffing levels are safe on their wards?
Geriatrics is the largest specialty doing general medicine and providing acute medical care of patients admitted as emergencies. As general physicians, they share with other specialists in Acute/General Medicine the provision of the first 24-48 hours of emergency medical care of all adults.
The month of Ramadan has passed relatively quickly. I have spent some long days at work and at home being rather hungry and thirsty. I have been fasting for around 17hrs a day and am eager now to return to being able to eat and drink during daylight hours.
An interdisciplinary group of clinicians and scientists have carried out a rapid review of the COVID-19 literature in relation to older people, which has just been published in Age and Ageing.
The novel Wuhan coronavirus, COVID-19, has been shown to affect every age group across the world. However, the severity with which it manifests, and the outcomes of the disease, appear to worsen with increasing age of the person infected.
Over the past month the landscape of healthcare has dramatically changed as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic. All acute trusts, primary care organisations and social services have had to remodel their working patterns in order to manage the rising number of patients with Covid-19.
To the two infamous certainties in life, we can now add the fact that Coronavirus (COVID-19) is going to stretch us all psychologically and physically and also as a broader society. Worse, for some the stretch will be too much, leading to their untimely death.
Person-centred care, for those who are enthusiastic about it like me, can at times feel like a religion. To be a pure follower of this approach, it means respecting the holistic aspects of a person, including perhaps interests and beliefs.
It takes time to recuperate when getting over an acute illness but can ‘preventing deconditioning’ help? In a clinical context, we can define deconditioning syndrome as ‘A complex process of physiological change induced by inactivity that can affect multiple body systems and may result in decline in physical, psychological and functional abilities’.
There is a story told of a man walking along a beach. A big storm the night before had thrown up thousands upon thousands of starfish. A small boy was bending down and repeatedly picking up a stranded starfish and throwing them back into the surf.
Every trust must take action to identify and treat Sepsis, which costs 37,000 lives per year. Sepsis occurs when the body responds poorly to a bacterial infection, attacking its own tissues and organs, and while early treatment is effective, the condition is hard to identify.
Do you know how many people in your hospital are living with frailty? Do you know where these patients are in your hospital? Why does it matter?
One of my least favourite moments of my otherwise very enjoyable MDT meeting is when we come to discuss the new admissions on our rehab ward that week. There are two types of transfer which seem to be increasingly common. Let’s call them Mr Smith and Mr Jones…
I am Barry Walkden and I’ve been in post as a Dementia Support Worker for almost 5 years now and I can honestly say that no two days are the same.
GIRFT (Getting It Right First Time) is an NHS England programme which combines data analysis to identify variation between hospitals and providers (good and bad) with visits.
NHS has been in a crisis for a few years now and if anyone thinks it can’t get any worse, they are in for a shock. It is like an overcrowded bus which keeps picking up passengers at every stop where more people get in than that get out. The bus is jam packed with little space to manoeuvre, untidy, and is tipping dangerously.
Antipsychotic drugs are recommended for the management of distress caused by delirium when it is unresponsive to other de-escalation techniques. This class of medication is known to have many potential adverse effects, especially in older people with background cognitive impairment