Implementation of a strategy involving a multidisciplinary mobile unit team to prevent hospital admission in nursing home residents: protocol of a quasi-experimental study (MMU-1 study).

Introduction: Nursing home residents represent a particularly vulnerable population experiencing high risk of unplanned hospital admissions, but few interventions have proved effective in reducing this risk. The aim of this research will be to verify the effects of a hospital-based multidisciplinary mobile unit (MMU) team intervention delivering urgent care to nursing home residents directly at their bedside.

Methods And Analysis: Four nursing homes based in the Parma province, in Northern Italy, will be involved in this prospective, pragmatic, multicentre, 18-month quasiexperimental study (sequential design with two cohorts).

A new technique to treat facet joint pain with pulsed radiofrequency.

Introduction: Facet joint pain affects 5% to 15% of the population with low back pain and the prevalence increases with age due to progression of arthritis. While conservative treatments are often unsuccessful, the scientific evidence on minimally invasive therapies such as intra-articular steroid infiltration and continuous and pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) of the medial branches is contradictory. Since PRF has recently been reported to successfully treat joint pain, a new application of this method is proposed for facetogenic lumbar pain via an intra-articular subcapsular approach.

The Treatment of Joint Pain with Intra-articular Pulsed Radiofrequency.

Background: The intra-articular (IA) application of pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) for pain in small and large joints represents a recent development that has proven to be effective in many cases. We performed a retrospective study of 89 such procedures in 57 consecutive patients with chronic articular pain.

Objectives: The aim of this retrospective study is to evaluate the effectiveness of intraarticular PRF in a group of 57 consecutive patients with chronic joint pain.

Attitudes to, and practice of, unconventional medicine by physicians in Italy.

Background: Given the great public demand for unconventional medicines (UM) in most Western countries, the aim of this study was to assess the attitudes to, and supply of, UM by physicians in Italy.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey of all of the physicians belonging to the Ordine dei Medici of the province of Parma was carried out by means of an anonymous questionnaire mailed to 2631 physicians and returned by 1734 (66%). The outcome measurements were the prevalence of opinions concerning UM, the prevalence of its practice, and the extent to which demographic and practice characteristics influenced it.