Prevalence and factors associated with advance health directives in frail older inpatients.

Background: Advance health directives (AHD) can be used to explore and document patient preferences for treatment and are therefore an important aspect of care planning.

Aims: To investigate the prevalence and factors associated with AHD among older inpatients.

Methods: This retrospective study included 6449 patients, aged ≥65 years referred for specialist geriatric consultation between 2007 and 2018 in Queensland, Australia.

Emergency intraoperative vascular surgery consultations at a tertiary academic center.

Objective: Vascular surgeons are frequently called on to provide emergency assistance to surgical colleagues. Whereas previous studies have included elective preoperative vascular consultations, we sought to characterize the breadth of assistance provided during unplanned intraoperative consultations at a single tertiary academic center.

Methods: We queried our institutional billing department during a 15-year period and reviewed the records (January 1, 2002-December 31, 2016) and identified unanticipated unplanned vascular surgery intraoperative consultations from all surgical services.

Insights From a Short-Term Protein-Calorie Restriction Exploratory Trial in Elective Carotid Endarterectomy Patients.

Background: Open vascular surgery interventions are not infrequently hampered by complication rates and durability. Preclinical surgical models show promising beneficial effects in modulating the host response to surgical injury via short-term dietary preconditioning. Here, we explore short-term protein-calorie restriction preconditioning in patients undergoing elective carotid endarterectomy to understand patient participation dynamics and practicalities of robust research approaches around nutritional/surgical interventions.