Risk factors for depression and anxiety in painful and painless diabetic polyneuropathy: A multicentre observational cross-sectional study.

Background: Despite the high prevalence of depression and anxiety in chronic pain conditions, current knowledge concerning emotional distress among painful diabetic polyneuropathy (pDSPN) and other diabetes mellitus (DM) sufferers is limited.

Methods: This observational multicentre cohort study employed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory II and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to assess symptoms of depression and anxiety in several groups with diabetes, as well as in a control group. The study cohort included 347 pDSPN patients aged 63.

[Thermoregulatory disorders and their significance in the elderly].

Our treatise is aimed at providing a brief survey on ethiology, pathogenesis, risks of inception, clinical picture, treatment pitfalls and prognosis of hypothermia and hyperthermia and possible interactions of these thermoregulation disorders with some other co-morbidities. It deals also with drugs and medicines including their potential unwanted side effects in these thermally abnormal conditions. The problems of hypothermia and hyperthermia in the senium (especially the late one) will be closely connected with labile homeostasis and the occurence of frailty syndrome which increases with the age.

Sensory phenotype and risk factors for painful diabetic neuropathy: a cross-sectional observational study.

Different sensory profiles in diabetic distal symmetrical sensory-motor polyneuropathy (DSPN) may be associated with pain and the responsiveness to analgesia. We aimed to characterize sensory phenotypes of patients with painful and painless diabetic neuropathy and to assess demographic, clinical, metabolic, and electrophysiological parameters related to the presence of neuropathic pain in a large cohort of well-defined DSPN subjects. This observational cross-sectional multi-center cohort study (performed as part of the ncRNAPain EU consortium) of 232 subjects with nonpainful (n = 74) and painful (n = 158) DSPN associated with diabetes mellitus of type 1 and 2 (median age 63 years, range 21-87 years; 92 women) comprised detailed history taking, laboratory tests, neurological examination, quantitative sensory testing, nerve conduction studies, and neuropathy severity scores.

[Polypharmacy viewed not only through the prism of multi-morbidity, but also as an independent geriatric syndrome].

Polypharmacy is common in the elderly, especially in the late age (over 75 years). Usually it is closely related to the geriatric multi-morbidity. The authors highlight the medication used in the anticipated positive and potential negative potential.

Can we improve the therapy of Clostridium difficile infection in elderly patients?

Background: Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is becoming a serious problem predominantly in geriatric patients, who are a significant risk group. The goal of this study was to evaluate the risk factors for mortality in CDI patients and to construct a binary logistic regression model that describes the probability of mortality in geriatric patients suffering from CDI.

Methods: In this retrospective study, we evaluated a group of 235 patients over 65 years of age with confirmed diagnoses of CDI, hospitalized at the Department of Internal Medicine, Geriatrics and General Practice, Brno, from January 2008 to December 2013.

[Geriatric multimorbidity--one of the key problem of contemporary medicine].

In the elderly population there are common permanent decrease of functional capacity, gradual emergence of various diseases leading to the wider multimorbidity and increased problems in the social sphere, which can develop frailty and social dependency. The paper analyzes the complex issue of geriatric multimorbidity and emphasizes its pitfalls, the need of an interdisciplinary approach and thinking of doctors, including the risks of modern pharmacotherapy. The aim of geriatric medicine is to optimize residual functions despite the decline in total functional capacity with increasing multimorbidity.

Benefits and pitfalls of cardiovascular medication in seniors.

Authors analyze actual situation in treatment of cardiovascular diseases in older patients. Different groups of recommended drugs are discussed separately; possible risks for elderly patients are stressed. Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors-this group is widely used in older patients because of their hypotensive effect, positive influence on cardiac failure, and positive modulation of endothelial dysfunction.

[The disease caused by Clostridium difficile in geriatric patients].

Background: The disease caused by the bacterium Clostridium difficile/Clostridium difficile associated disease/diarrhoea (CDAD) is becoming a serious problem especially in geriatric patients, who are now relatively often treated by broad-spectrum antibiotics. The goal of our study was to evaluate the occurrence of the risk factors and to evaluate the complex of relations and coherence which lead to the CDAD disease in a selected group of seniors treated at our institution.

Material And Methods: The retrospective study evaluated a group of 67 patients with diagnosed CDAD, who were hospitalized at the clinic of internal medicine, geriatrics and practical medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Faculty Hospital in Brno from January 2007 till October 2010.