Ageing, loneliness, and the geographic distribution of New Zealand's interRAI-HC cohort.

Loneliness is a significant negative predictor of ageing well and a contra-indicator for resilience against requiring long-term residential care. Health geographers can contribute to the loneliness and ageing literature through examining how exposures in the physical and social landscape can affect positive and negative health outcomes. As well as improving individual experiences of ageing, spatial analysis may help to contribute to better understandings of loneliness and help reduce the $1.

Comprehensive clinical assessment of home-based older persons within New Zealand: an epidemiological profile of a national cross-section.

Objective: Since 2012, all community care recipients in New Zealand have undergone a standardised needs assessment using the Home Care International Residential Assessment Instrument (interRAI-HC). This study describes the national interRAI-HC population, assesses its data quality and evaluates its ability to be matched.

Methods: The interRAI-HC instrument elicits information on 236 questions over 20 domains; conducted by 1,800+ trained health professionals.

Social and spatial inequalities in Rotaviral enteritis: a case for universally funded vaccination in New Zealand.

Aims: Rotaviruses have long been recognised as the most common cause of diarrhoea-related childhood morbidity and mortality worldwide. The benefits of national rotavirus vaccination programmes have been proven, with estimates of the reduction in hospital stays ranging from 70% to 90%. Previous work has found spatial variation in rotaviral rates between areas in Australia and Germany.

Population access to hospital emergency departments and the impacts of health reform in New Zealand.

In the current political climate of evidence-based research, GIS has emerged as a powerful research tool as it allows spatial and social health inequality to be explored efficiently. This article explores the impact health reforms had on geographical accessibility to hospital emergency department (ED) services in New Zealand from 1991 to 2001. Travel time was calculated using least-cost path analysis, which identified the shortest travel time from each census enumeration district through a road network to the nearest ED.

The metabolic syndrome and risk of major coronary events in the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study (4S) and the Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS).

The metabolic syndrome, which is a set of lipid and nonlipid risk factors of metabolic origin linked with insulin resistance, is believed to be associated with an elevated risk for cardiovascular disease, but few have studied this association in prospective long-term cardiovascular outcomes trials. Placebo data from the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study (4S) and the Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS) were used post hoc to estimate the long-term relative risk of major coronary events (MCEs) associated with the metabolic syndrome, after excluding diabetes mellitus. In 4S and AFCAPS/TexCAPS, respectively, placebo-treated patients with the metabolic syndrome were 1.

Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS): efficacy and tolerability of long-term treatment with lovastatin in women.

The Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS) is the first coronary heart disease (CHD) primary prevention trial of the cholesterol-reducing agents called "statins" to include women. For 5608 men and 997 postmenopausal women without clinical evidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) who had average low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and below average high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), 20-40 mg/day lovastatin reduced first acute major coronary events (AMCEs) 37% (for those receiving placebo and lovastatin, respectively, 183 and 116 first AMCEs defined as fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction [MI], unstable angina, or sudden cardiac death; relative risk [RR] 0.63; 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.

Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TEXCAPS): additional perspectives on tolerability of long-term treatment with lovastatin.

This study presents the long-term safety data from AFCAPS/TexCAPS, the first primary prevention trial to demonstrate that men and women with average levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and below average levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) can significantly benefit from long-term treatment to lower LDL-C; lovastatin 20 to 40 mg/day reduced the risk of a first acute major coronary event (fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction, unstable angina, or sudden death) by 37% (p = 0.00008). This double-blind randomized, placebo-controlled trial, in 6,605 generally healthy middle-aged and older men and women, had prespecified end point and cancer analyses.

Application of the National Cholesterol Education Program and joint European treatment criteria and clinical benefit in the Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS).

Aims: The Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study reported that diet with lovastatin, 20-40 mg daily, reduced the risk for a first coronary event by 37%. Because only 17% of this cohort would have qualified for drug therapy according to current U.S.

Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS): baseline characteristics and comparison with USA population.

Background: Results of the Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS) demonstrated that treatment with lovastatin, in addition to modifications of diet and lifestyle, reduced the rate of first acute major coronary events compared with placebo in a cohort that included participants with average to mildly elevated total levels of cholesterol, and below average levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, women, and elderly subjects.

Objective: To describe the baseline characteristics of the study's cohort.

Design: This was a double-blind, placebo-controlled, primary-prevention trial in which Americans with average to mildly elevated total levels of cholesterol [4.

Relation between baseline and on-treatment lipid parameters and first acute major coronary events in the Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS).

Background: The Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS) is the first primary-prevention study in a cohort with average total cholesterol (TC) and LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) and below-average HDL cholesterol (HDL-C). Treatment with lovastatin (20 to 40 mg/d) resulted in a 25% reduction in LDL-C and a 6% increase in HDL-C, as well as a 37% reduction in risk for first acute major coronary event (AMCE), defined as fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction, unstable angina, or sudden cardiac death. This article describes the relation between baseline and on-treatment lipid and apolipoprotein (apo) parameters and subsequent risk for AMCEs.

Aerobic exercise training can reverse age-related peripheral circulatory changes in healthy older men.

Background: The age-related decline in maximal oxygen consumption is attenuated by habitual aerobic exercise. However, the relative effects of training on central and peripheral responses to exercise in older subjects are not known. The present study assessed the contribution of central and peripheral responses to the age-associated decline in peak oxygen consumption and compared the effect of exercise training in healthy older and younger subjects.

Primary prevention of acute coronary events with lovastatin in men and women with average cholesterol levels: results of AFCAPS/TexCAPS. Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study.

Context: Although cholesterol-reducing treatment has been shown to reduce fatal and nonfatal coronary disease in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD), it is unknown whether benefit from the reduction of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in patients without CHD extends to individuals with average serum cholesterol levels, women, and older persons.

Objective: To compare lovastatin with placebo for prevention of the first acute major coronary event in men and women without clinically evident atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease with average total cholesterol (TC) and LDL-C levels and below-average high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels.

Design: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Improvement in the mechanical efficiency of walking: an explanation for the "placebo effect" seen during repeated exercise testing of patients with heart failure. Duke University Clinical Cardiology Studies (DUCCS) Exercise Group.

To determine the mechanism responsible for the "placebo effect" seen during serial exercise testing of patients with heart failure, we examined metabolic variables for 81 patients who underwent five baseline exercise tests as part of a multicenter drug trial. The patients were 50 men and 31 women with a mean ejection fraction of 30.1% and a mean age of 69 years.

Design & rationale of the Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS).

The Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS/TexCAPS) is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled primary prevention trial. It is designed to test the hypothesis that in addition to a lipid-lowering diet, treatment with lovastatin is more effective than placebo in reducing acute major coronary events (i.e.

Experimental atherosclerosis at the carotid bifurcation of the cynomolgus monkey. Localization, compensatory enlargement, and the sparing effect of lowered heart rate.

We have characterized plaque localization, the extent of compensatory artery enlargement, and the effect of heart rate in experimental atherosclerosis at the carotid bifurcation of the cynomolgus monkey. We altered heart rate by sino-atrial node ablation (SNA) and then fed the animals an atherogenic diet for 6 months. Heart rate was measured at four time points by 24-hour telemetry.

Age-related alterations of Doppler left ventricular filling indexes in normal subjects are independent of left ventricular mass, heart rate, contractility and loading conditions.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether age-related alterations in Doppler diastolic filling indexes occur independent of cardiovascular disease and confounding physiologic variables. Ten old (62 to 73 years) and 10 young (21 to 32 years) healthy male volunteers were rigorously screened for cardiovascular disease and underwent comprehensive Doppler echocardiography, radionuclide ventriculography and invasive measurements of right heart and left atrial pressures. There were no differences between the two groups in the physiologic variables of left ventricular mass, volumes, ejection fraction, end-systolic wall stress, left atrial size, heart rate and right atrial, pulmonary artery, pulmonary capillary wedge and systemic arterial pressures.

Retarding effect of lowered heart rate on coronary atherosclerosis.

The role of heart rate in the development of coronary atherosclerosis was assessed in adult male cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis). Heart rate was lowered in six animals by surgical ablation of the sinoatrial node. A sham procedure, which included all of the surgical steps except for sinoatrial node ablation, was carried out in eight animals.

Parallel growth of rectus sheath grafts and recipient aorta. Critical role of graft tissue preservation.

Previous experimental studies revealed striking similarities in mechanical properties of host aortic tissue and rectus sheath inserted as an aortic graft, as well as enlargement of some of the grafts. We have now evaluated the capacity of rectus sheath grafts to keep pace with aortic growth and investigated the role of tissue preservation in determining the ability of such grafts to maintain suitable dimensions. Autologous rectus sheath grafts were substituted for thoracic aortic segments in 15 puppies, 8 weeks of age.

Clotted false lumen: reappraisal of indications for medical management of acute aortic dissection.

Evidence of a clotted false lumen in patients with acute aortic dissection has been considered to be a primary indication for medical rather than surgical therapy. A review of recent publications shows that 14 of 15 such patients survived with medical management. We present three patients who had radiographic, surgical, or necropsy evidence of acute aortic dissection with a clotted false lumen, who suffered further dissection in spite of adequate medical therapy.

Retrograde coronary venous perfusion at low pressure.

The effectiveness of localized retrograde coronary venous perfusion (RCVP) in preventing or reversing myocardial ischemia after acute ligation of a coronary artery is described. Ten domestic pigs (Group I) underwent aorto left anterior coronary vein grafting with RCVP at systemic pressure. In another set of ten pigs (Group II), the coronary vein was similarly grafted, but the proximal end of the graft was perfused with oxygenated blood by means of an external pump at reduced pressure and flow.

Autologous rectus sheath grafts. V. Growth in aortic grafts.

Experiments were designed to test autologous rectus sheath as a replacement for the thoracic aorta in the growing dog. Adequacy of graft function was determined by angiography at 4 month intervals; stress-strain measurements and microscopic examination were made at the time of autopsy. A 3 cm tubular graft of rectus sheath tissue was employed as an aortic graft in 13 mongrel puppies.