End of life: Expert care and support, not physician-hastened death.

In legal physician-hastened death, a physician prescribes medication with the primary intent of causing the death of a willing terminally ill patient. This practice differs radically from palliative sedation, intended to relieve a patient's suffering rather than cause a patient's death. In this position paper, we argue that the practice of physician-hastened death is contrary to the interests of patients, their families, and the sound ethical practice of medicine.

Utilization of rehabilitation therapies by nursing home residents with MS at admission.

Objective: To identify factors associated with the utilization of physical and occupational therapies by nursing home residents with multiple sclerosis (MS) at admission to the facility.

Design: The study analyzed 27,264 admission assessments for residents with MS recorded in the national Minimum Data Set (MDS) between June, 1998 and June, 2003. A multiple linear regression model was employed to analyze the MDS data.

Racial analyses of longer-stay nursing home residents with multiple sclerosis.

Objectives: Compare profiles of African Americans with multiple sclerosis (MS) to White residents with MS one year after admission to a nursing facility.

Methods: We used all admission assessments recorded in the national Minimum Data Set (MDS) from 1999 to 2001 as well as all MDS annual assessments recorded from 2000 to 2002. We matched admission assessments with first annual assessment for 3632 White residents with MS and 461 African-American residents with MS.

Nursing home residents with multiple sclerosis and dementia compared to other multiple sclerosis residents.

Cognitive impairment may be a significant symptom in multiple sclerosis (MS), affecting about one half of MS patients in study samples similar to the general MS population. An interesting question is what role dementia, of any aetiology, plays in the cognitive ability of people with MS. The objective of this research is to learn more about nursing home residents with MS and dementia, identifying how they differ from other residents with MS.

Nursing home residents with multiple sclerosis: comparisons of African American residents to white residents at admission.

This research profiles African American residents with multiple sclerosis (MS) at admission to the nursing facility and compares them to profiles of white residents with MS using the Minimum Data Set (MDS). We analysed MDS admission assessments for 1367 African Americans with MS and 9294 whites with MS. African American residents with MS were significantly younger at admission than white residents with MS, with almost one half of these African Americans 50 years or younger compared to only one quarter of these whites.

Analyses of nursing home residents with multiple sclerosis at admission and one year after admission.

This research compares profiles of residents with multiple sclerosis (MS) at admission to the nursing facility with profiles of these same residents one year later using the Minimum Data Set (MDS) to determine how their health and care received changed after one year in the facility. We matched MDS admission assessments with their first annual assessment for 1309 residents with MS. These residents with MS demonstrated deterioration in cognitive performance, communication skills, motor performance and bladder/bowel continence after one year in the facility.