Publications by authors named "Elmira Valiyeva"

Medicare's prospective payment system for hospitals (PPS), introduced in the USA in 1983, replaced cost reimbursement with a system of fixed rates which created incentives for hospitals to control costs. Previous studies found that elderly patients were discharged from hospital "quicker and sicker" under PPS and concluded that families were coping at home. We analyse a national longitudinal survey, the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and its Epidemiologic Followup Study, which includes data on more outcomes over a longer period than earlier studies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a rapidly growing public health problem in the United States. It is unclear whether men and women differ in their utilization of ambulatory care or medications prescribed for COPD.

Objective: To evaluate sex-related trends in physician-office and out-patient department COPD visits from 1995 through 2004.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Three warnings of serious adverse events associated with the use of atypical antipsychotic drugs among elderly patients with dementia were sent to health care professionals in Canada. We assessed the impact of these warnings on prescription rates of antipsychotic drugs in this patient population.

Methods: We used prescription drug claims data from Ontario to calculate prescription rates of atypical and conventional antipsychotic drugs among elderly patients with dementia from May 1, 2000, to Feb.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: While risks of disease, hospitalization, and death attributable to lifestyle-related factors such as smoking, inactivity, and obesity have been well studied, their associations with nursing home admission are less well known. These risk factors are usually established by middle age, but nothing is known about how they relate to long-term risk of nursing home admission in this age group.

Methods: Cox proportional hazards regressions were used to analyze risk of nursing home admission over 2 decades of follow-up (1971-1975 to 1992) in a nationally representative, longitudinal survey of community-dwelling adults aged 45 to 74 years at baseline.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To compare persistency rates and persistency days in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) who initiated therapy with either rivastigmine or donepezil, and to identify factors influencing persistency in a real-world setting.

Design And Methods: This study used data collected by MarketScan from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2002. Patients were included if they were newly diagnosed with AD and filled at least one prescription for rivastigmine or donepezil between 1 July 2000 and 30 June 2001, were > or =65 years of age on the index prescription date, and had continuous health and prescription insurance during the entire study period.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To estimate all-cause hospitalizations, nursing home admissions, and deaths attributable to diabetes using a new methodology based on longitudinal data for a representative sample of older U.S. adults.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure recently released new clinical practice guidelines that target systolic blood pressure and identify persons with "prehypertension" (systolic blood pressure, 120-139 mm Hg), previously considered normal, as being at elevated risk and in need of intervention.

Methods: We used a simulation model, fitted to longitudinal data from the first NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) Epidemiologic Followup Study, to estimate the effects of prehypertension and residual hypertension (systolic blood pressure, > or =140 mm Hg). The term residual hypertension recognizes that many people with hypertension have lowered their pressures through treatment, but not to less than 140 mm Hg.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF