Characteristics and Incidence of Chronic Illness in Community-Dwelling Predominantly Male U.S. Veteran Centenarians.

Objectives: To assess the incidence of chronic illness and its effect on veteran centenarians.

Design: Retrospective longitudinal cohort study.

Setting: United States Veterans Affairs Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW).

The attitudes of graduate healthcare students toward older adults, personal aging, health care reform, and interprofessional collaboration.

Healthcare reform has led to an increased emphasis on interprofessional healthcare models for older adults. Unfortunately, best practice education that focuses on the interprofessional healthcare of the elderly does not yet exist. As a prelude to implementing interprofessional geriatric educational initiatives, we developed a survey to identify potential attitudinal differences among graduate healthcare students regarding personal aging, caring for older adults, healthcare reform and the role of the physician on the interprofessional team.

Longitudinal course of substance treatment benefits in older male veteran at-risk drinkers.

Background: This investigation aims to determine the 12-month drinking trajectory of older at-risk drinkers in treatment. Furthermore, the drinking trajectory between at-risk drinkers who had met the threshold suggestive of alcohol dependence (problem at-risk drinkers) and those who did not meet this threshold (nonproblematic at-risk drinkers) were compared.

Methods: This investigation is a component of the PRISM-E (Primary Care Research in Substance Abuse and Mental Health for the Elderly) Study, a multisite randomized trial comparing service use, outcomes, and cost between Integrated (IC) versus Enhanced Specialty Referral (ESR) care models for older (65+ years) adults with depression, anxiety, and/or at-risk alcohol consumption.

Effect of depression treatment on depressive symptoms in older adulthood: the moderating role of pain.

Objectives: To investigate whether pain severity and interference with normal work activities moderate the effects of depression treatment on changes in depressive symptoms over time in older adults in primary care.

Design: Patient-randomized, clinical trial.

Setting: Multisite: three clinics located in Veterans Affairs Medical Centers.

Symptoms of depression and anxiety (MHI) following acute medical/surgical hospitalization and post-discharge psychiatric diagnoses (DSM) in 839 geriatric US veterans.

Objective: We addressed the relatively unexplored use of screening scores measuring symptoms of depression and/or anxiety to aid in identifying patients at increased risk for post-discharge DSM-IV Axis I diagnoses. We were unable to find such studies in the literature.

Method: Elderly veterans without recent psychiatric diagnoses were screened for depression and anxiety symptoms upon admission to acute medical/surgical units using the Mental Health Inventory (MHI).

Design and sample characteristics of the PRISM-E multisite randomized trial to improve behavioral health care for the elderly.

Objective: To describe the design of the Primary Care Research in Substance Abuse and Mental Health for Elderly (PRISM-E) study and baseline characteristics of the randomized primary care patients with mental health problems and at-risk alcohol use.

Method: Adults aged 65 and older were screened at primary care clinics from 10 study sites throughout the United States. Those diagnosed for depression, anxiety, and/or at-risk alcohol consumption were randomized to either integrated or enhanced referral care.