Mortality in hip fracture patients after implementation of a nurse practitioner-led orthogeriatric care program: results of a 1-year follow-up.

Background: Hip fractures are a major cause of mortality and disability in frail older adults. Therefore, orthogeriatrics has been embraced to improve patient outcomes. With the optimal template of orthogeriatric care still unknown, and to curtail rising healthcare expenditure we implemented a nurse practitioner-led orthogeriatric care program (NPOCP).

Effects of a Medication Review on Delirium in Older Hospitalised Patients: A Comparative Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background: Delirium in older hospitalised patients is a common and serious disorder. Polypharmacy and certain medications are risk factors for developing delirium. A medication review could benefit older hospitalised patients with delirium.

Unplanned readmissions in younger and older adult patients: the role of healthcare-related adverse events.

Background: Readmissions are a burden for patients and increase healthcare costs. In Europe, factors associated with readmissions have not yet been extensively investigated. This study aimed to discover factors associated with readmissions in both young and older adult internal medicine patients.

Acute Hospital Admissions Because of Health Care-Related Adverse Events: A Retrospective Study of 5 Specialist Departments.

Background: Health care-related adverse events (HCRAEs), which should not be confused with (blameworthy) medical errors, are common; they can lead to hospital admissions and can have grave consequences. Although they are sometimes potentially preventable, information is lacking on HCRAEs leading to admission to different departments.

Aim: This study aimed to gain insight into the incidence, type, severity, and preventability of HCRAEs (including adverse drug events) leading to hospitalization to the departments of internal medicine, surgery, orthopedics, neurology, and neurosurgery.

Ambulance patients with nondocumented sepsis have a high mortality risk: a retrospective study.

Objective: Sepsis is a serious disease leading to high mortality. Early recognition is important because treatment is most effective when started quickly.The primary aim of this retrospective cohort study was to assess how many sepsis patients are documented as septic by ambulance staff.

Direct health care costs of hospital admissions due to adverse events in The Netherlands.

Background: Health care-related adverse events (AEs) are common, and the economic burden is substantial. Information on costs of health care-related AEs 'leading' to hospitalization is limited and has focused on adverse drug events.

Aim: To provide insight into costs of admissions due to (preventable) health care-related AEs, not limited to adverse drug events.

Association of cytomegalovirus and other pathogens with frailty and diabetes mellitus, but not with cardiovascular disease and mortality in psycho-geriatric patients; a prospective cohort study.

Background: Studies about associations of infections with herpes viruses and other pathogens, such as Chlamydia pneumoniae (CP) and Helicobacter pylori (HP) with cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes mellitus (DM), frailty and/or mortality are conflicting. Since high levels of antibodies against these pathogens occur in the elderly, the role of these pathogens in morbidity and mortality of vulnerable elderly was explored.

Results: Blood samples of 295 community dwelling psycho-geriatric patients were tested for IgG antibodies to herpes simplex virus type 1 and 2, varicella zoster virus, Epstein Barr virus (EBV), cytomegalovirus (CMV), human herpes virus type 6 (HHV6), CP and HP.

Hypomanic episode as a first presentation of a large B-cell lymphoma.

This case report describes a cachectic patient with a first hypomanic episode, hypercortisolism and a newly diagnosed large B-cell lymphoma. Hypercortisolism, causing the manic symptoms, may be explained due to low leptin levels as a result of cancer cachexia and fasting. Patients with cancer frequently have psychiatric complications, but manic symptoms are rare.

[Risk stratification at the emergency ward is a must].

In light of the growing number of elderly patients visiting emergency rooms, a different approach is needed than that used toward the younger patient. Healthcare should be tailored to this specific elderly target group. Study results have recently been published on an instrument used to stratify risks in older patients who are acutely admitted to the hospital; this instrument is called 'Identification of Seniors at Risk-Hospitalized Patients' (ISAR-HP).

The frailty dilemma. Review of the predictive accuracy of major frailty scores.

Background: To identify frail elderly individuals, several index or scoring systems have been developed for research purposes. The practical value of these scores for screening and diagnostic use is uncertain.

Aim: The available scoring systems were reviewed to determine whether they can be used in daily practice.

Older individuals with diabetes have an increased risk of recurrent falls: analysis of potential mediating factors: the Longitudinal Ageing Study Amsterdam.

Objectives: to compare the incidence of recurrent falls in older people with and without diabetes, and to examine diabetes- and fall-related risk factors explaining the increased risk of recurrent falls associated with diabetes.

Methods: population-based cohort study of 1,145 (85 with diabetes) community-dwelling participants, aged ≥65 years, from The Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA). Falls were assessed prospectively (every 3 months) during a 3-year follow-up period.

[Doubts about the efficacy of fall-prevention programmes for the elderly].

Multifactorial fall-prevention programmes are often not effective in preventing falls and functional decline. This is also the case in the recently published study of de Vries et al. Several causes for this lack of efficacy can be given.

[Unexplained fever after exposure to rats: rat bite fever or Haverhill fever].

A 24-year old man presented himself to the emergency ward with complaints of fever, nausea, headache, muscle ache and chest pain. Two weeks before presentation he had been bitten by a pet rat. We determined that he had bacteraemia caused by a Streptobacillus moniliformis infection, which led to the development of an illness called rat bite fever.

Co-ingestion of protein and leucine stimulates muscle protein synthesis rates to the same extent in young and elderly lean men.

Background: The progressive loss of skeletal muscle mass with aging is attributed to a disruption in the regulation of skeletal muscle protein turnover.

Objective: We investigated the effects on whole-body protein balance and mixed-muscle protein synthesis rates of the ingestion of carbohydrate with or without protein and free leucine after simulated activities of daily living.

Design: Eight elderly (75 +/- 1 y) and 8 young (20 +/- 1 y) lean men were randomly assigned to 2 crossover experiments in which they consumed either carbohydrate (CHO) or carbohydrate plus protein and free leucine (CHO+Pro+Leu) after performing 30 min of standardized activities of daily living.