Handgrip strength and risk of malnutrition are associated with an increased risk of hospitalizations in inflammatory bowel disease patients.

Background: In patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), frailty is independently associated with mortality and morbidity.

Objectives: This study aimed to extend this work to determine the association between the clinical frailty scale (CFS), handgrip strength (HGS), and malnutrition with IBD-related hospitalizations and surgeries.

Design: IBD patients ⩾18 years of age were prospectively enrolled from two ambulatory care clinics in Alberta, Canada.

Association Between Frailty or Sarcopenia and Adverse Outcomes in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Systematic Review.

Background And Aims: Chronological age often guides the management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Frailty and sarcopenia, which are related but distinct entities that become increasingly prevalent with age, better predict nonsurgical and surgical outcomes in various chronic illnesses. We conducted a systematic review to assess the association between frailty or sarcopenia and adverse nonsurgical outcomes in adult patients with IBD.

Interrater Reliability of the Clinical Frailty Scale by Geriatrician and Intensivist in Patients Admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.

Background: The Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is a commonly used frailty measure in intensive care unit (ICU) settings. We are interested in the test characteristics, especially interrater reliability, of the CFS in ICU by comparing the scores of intensivists to geriatricians.

Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study on a convenience sample of newly admitted patients to an ICU in Edmonton, Canada.

Assessment and Utility of Frailty Measures in Critical Illness, Cardiology, and Cardiac Surgery.

Frailty is a clearly emerging theme in acute care medicine, with obvious prognostic and health resource implications. "Frailty" is a term used to describe a multidimensional syndrome of loss of homeostatic reserves that gives rise to a vulnerability to adverse outcomes after relatively minor stressor events. This is conceptually simple, yet there has been little consensus on the operational definition.

Avian influenza A (H5N1) infection with respiratory failure and meningoencephalitis in a Canadian traveller.

In an urban centre in Alberta, an otherwise healthy 28-year-old woman presented to hospital with pleuritic chest and abdominal pain after returning from Beijing, China. After several days, this was followed by headache, confusion and, ultimately, respiratory failure, coma and death. Microbiology yielded influenza A subtype H5N1 from various body sites and neuroimaging was consistent with meningoencephalitis.

Evaluating the views of paramedics, cardiologists, emergency department physicians and nurses on advanced prehospital management of acute ST elevation myocardial infarction.

Background: Although advanced prehospital management (PHM) in ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) reduces reperfusion delay and improves patient outcomes, its use in North America remains uncommon. Understanding perceived barriers to and facilitators of PHM implementation may support the expansion of programs, with associated patient benefit.

Objective: To explore the attitudes and beliefs of paramedics, cardiologists, emergency physicians and nurses regarding these issues.