Discontinuing Inappropriate Medication Use in Nursing Home Residents: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Inappropriate prescribing is a well-known clinical problem in nursing home residents, but few interventions have focused on reducing inappropriate medication use.

Objective: To examine successful discontinuation of inappropriate medication use and to improve prescribing in nursing home residents.

Design: Pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial, with clustering by elder care physicians and their wards.

Preliminary report on osteochondrosis in cattle in the north-western parts of South Africa.

The north-western part of South Africa, in particular, is well known for mineral imbalances. Aphosphorosis, resulting in rickets and osteomalacia, received a lot of attention at the turn of the nineteenth century (1882-1912). This was followed in 1997 by research on Vryburg hepatosis, another area-specific mineral imbalance-related disease in young calves reared on manganese-rich soil derived from the weathering of dolomitic (carbonate) rock formations.