The Value of Admission Clinical Data for Diagnosing Heart Failure in Long-term Care.

Background: Heart failure (HF) is common in long-term care (LTC). Diagnostic uncertainty is important barrier to optimal HF management, stemming from inadequate health information transfer upon LTC admission. We determine the utility of admission clinical information to confirm a HF diagnosis in new LTC residents.

Heart failure--related mortality and hospitalization in the year following admission to a long-term care facility: the geriatric outcomes and longitudinal decline in heart failure (GOLD-HF) study.

Background: Heart failure (HF) is common in long-term care facilities (LTCs). This study compared mortality and hospitalization rates and examined predictors of these outcomes among new LTC residents with and without HF.

Methods And Results: This prospective cohort study followed 546 newly admitted residents from 42 LTCs for up to 1 year.

Nurses' perceived barriers to optimal pain management in older adults on acute medical units.

Nurses' perceptions of barriers preventing optimal pain management in older adults on acute medical units and the extent to which they perceived they had adopted four evidence-based practices related to pain assessment and management were often incongruent with actual practice. Eliciting reports of pain, offering pro re nata pain relief regularly, utilizing pain assessment tools in patients with cognitive impairment, redesigning documentation tools and processes, making nonpharmacological alternatives accessible, and helping patients and families manage side effects would target the 12 barriers having the biggest impact.

Pain management practices with older adults on acute medical units.

Persistent pain is a significant problem for older hospitalized adults and their health care team. A better understanding of the approach to pain management in the clinical setting will provide guidance for the development of improvements in clinical management. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of pain and to examine the current state of pain assessment and management in older adults on the six acute medical units of an academic health sciences centre.

Tuberculosis in Somalia.

This is a description of a tuberculosis treatment programme in a country at war where security and the absence of order pose problems to health care delivery. It is also a description of an epidemic of tuberculosis where treatment and diagnosis are difficult and the methods used have changed little in many years. More international pressure is needed.