Publications by authors named "Kerse N"
Purpose: We wanted to assess the effectiveness of a home-based physical activity program, the Depression in Late Life Intervention Trial of Exercise (DeLLITE), in improving function, quality of life, and mood in older people with depressive symptoms.
Methods: We undertook a randomized controlled trial involving 193 people aged 75 years and older with depressive symptoms at enrollment who were recruited from primary health care practices in Auckland, New Zealand. Participants received either an individualized physical activity program or social visits to control for the contact time of the activity intervention delivered over 6 months.
Interventions for preventing falls in older people in nursing care facilities and hospitals.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev
January 2010
Background: Falls in nursing care facilities and hospitals are common events that cause considerable morbidity and mortality for older people.
Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of interventions designed to reduce falls by older people in nursing care facilities and hospitals.
Search Strategy: We searched the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group Specialised Register (January 2009); the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library 2008, Issue 2); MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL (all to November 2008); trial registers and reference lists of articles.
Objective: To establish the feasibility of conducting a home-based progressive resistance exercise programme to improve calf muscle pump function in community-based patients with venous leg ulcers.
Method: Participants were randomised to receive a 12-week progressive resistance exercise programme using heel raises in addition to compression. The control was usual care in addition to compression.
Background: Graded health benefits of physical activity have been demonstrated for the reduction of coronary heart disease, some cancers, and type-2 diabetes, and for injury reduction and improvements in mental health. Older adults are particularly at risk of physical inactivity, and would greatly benefit from successful targeted physical activity interventions.
Methods/design: The Healthy Steps study is a 12-month randomized controlled trial comparing the efficacy of a pedometer-based Green Prescription with the conventional time-based Green Prescription in increasing and maintaining physical activity levels in low-active adults over 65 years of age.
Background: Concern has been expressed about the relevance of secondary care studies to primary care patients specifically about the effectiveness of antidepressant medication. There is a need to review the evidence of only those studies that have been conducted comparing antidepressant efficacy with placebo in primary care-based samples.
Objectives: To determine the efficacy and tolerability of antidepressants in patients (under the age of 65 years) with depression in primary care.
The quality of nursing home care for older people, including medication use and related outcomes, has been problematic in a number of developed countries. This paper compares the policy approaches to drug prescribing and administration in nursing homes adopted by four countries. The United States has led the way in terms of regulating and inspecting nursing homes, with strict requirements for prescribing psycho-tropic medications, commonly known as "chemical restraints.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To determine factors that facilitated or hindered recruitment of general practices into a large New Zealand primary care project that aimed to determine general practice characteristics of immunization coverage.
Methods: The project had a multi-level recruitment strategy requiring recruitment of randomly selected practices before randomly selecting GPs, practice nurses and caregivers of children enrolled at those practices. Detailed quantitative and qualitative recruitment data were recorded on an access database.
Introduction: There has been concern over high rates of mental illness in Maori. Previous studies in general practice have had small sample sizes.
Aim: To determine the prevalence of major depression among Maori patients in Auckland general practice using the CIDI and the PHQ as measurement tools.
Article Synopsis
- A sense of belonging to a place can enhance identity and well-being, particularly in older adults, who find security and meaning in their living environments.
- A study conducted in Auckland involved interviews with 83 older community members to explore their connections to their homes and neighborhoods, emphasizing the importance of attachment to place.
- Findings revealed that while participants had deep attachments to their homes and limited social interactions, they navigated both positive and negative changes in their social spaces, viewing them as meaningful rather than purely negative.
Aims: To investigate the association between ethnicity and risk of first cardiovascular (CV) event for people with Type 2 diabetes in New Zealand.
Methods: A prospective cohort study using routinely collected data from a national primary health care diabetes annual review programme linked to national hospital admission and mortality data. Ethnicity was recorded as European, Maori, Pacific, Indo-Asian, East-Asian or Other.
Aim: To evaluate the acceptability and utilisation of three electronic textbooks: DynaMed, MD Consult (including FirstConsult) and UpToDate.
Method: Two hundred general practitioners accessed three e-textbooks through a web portal. General practitioners completed an electronic survey and used a random selection during a telephone interview to answer four clinical questions: screening, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.
Objective: To assess the effectiveness of an activity programme in improving function, quality of life, and falls in older people in residential care.
Design: Cluster randomised controlled trial with one year follow-up.
Setting: 41 low level dependency residential care homes in New Zealand.
Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of a community-based falls-and-fracture nurse coordinator and multifactorial intervention in reducing falls in older people.
Design: Randomized, controlled trial.
Setting: Screening for previous falls in family practice followed by community-based intervention.
Objective: the size of the burden of unmet needs of older people living in the community is unknown. We aim to validate a brief postal questionnaire, the Brief Risk Identification of Geriatric Health Tool (BRIGHT) questionnaire, to find cases of older people with disabilities (case-finding) living in the community.
Methods: community-dwelling patients over the age of 75 years were invited from two general practitioners in Auckland, New Zealand.
Aims: To appraise the literature on long-term neuropsychological and functional outcomes in stroke survivors and identify the gaps, challenges and future research in this area.
Background: Stroke care resources are scarce, and the number of stroke survivors is likely to increase with the ageing of the population. Thus, evaluating the cost, frequency and prognostic factors of long-terms stroke functional and neuropsychological outcomes is of paramount importance for evidence-based clinical decision making, including the rationale, planning, provision and allocation of health services, and the development of effective interventions.
Objective: The objective was to test the ability of the Brief Risk Identification for Geriatric Health Tool (BRIGHT) to identify older emergency department (ED) patients with functional and physical impairment.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional study in which 139 persons > or = 75 years, who presented to an urban New Zealand ED over a 12-week period, completed the 11-item BRIGHT case-finding tool. Then, within 10 days of their index ED visit, 114 persons completed a comprehensive geriatric assessment.
Background: Depression and falls are common and co-exist for older people. Safe management of each of these conditions is important to quality of life.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was used to examine medication use associated with injurious and non-injurious falls in 21,900 community-dwelling adults, aged 60 years or over from 383 Australian general practices recruited for the DEPS-GP Project.
Background: Physical activity shows potential in combating the poor outcomes associated with depression in older people. Meta-analyses show gaps in the research with poor trial design compromising certainty in conclusions and few programmes showing sustained effects.
Methods/design: The Depression in Late Life: an Intervention Trial of Exercise (DeLLITE) is a 12 month randomised controlled trial of a physical activity intervention to increase functional status in people aged 75 years and older with depressive symptoms.
Background And Purpose: Falls are an important issue in older people. We aimed to determine the incidence, circumstances, and predictors of falls in patients with recent acute stroke.
Methods: The Auckland Regional Community Stroke (ARCOS) study was a prospective population-based stroke incidence study conducted in Auckland, New Zealand (NZ) during 2002 to 2003.
Background: Few studies have assessed the longitudinal impact of providing unpaid care for stroke survivors. We aimed to describe the positive and negative impact of providing unpaid care and to identify independent predictors of poor carer outcome.
Methods: The Auckland Regional Community Stroke study was a prospective population-based stroke incidence study conducted in Auckland, New Zealand, over a 12-month period in 2002-2003.
Objectives: To describe the recruitment strategy and association between facility and staff characteristics and success of resident recruitment for the Promoting Independence in Residential Care (PIRC) trial.
Design: Cross-sectional study of staff and facility characteristics and recruitment rates within facilities with calculation of cluster effects of multiple measures.
Setting And Participants: Staff of low-level dependency residential care facilities and residents able to engage in a physical activity program in 2 cities in New Zealand.
Objective: Anxiety is common in the community and in family practice (FP) patients. It is a treatable condition but often not diagnosed. The aim of this study was to determine the validity of two written questions to aid family physicians in the identification of anxiety.
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