Am J Manag Care
October 2024
Objectives: This study aims to investigate the relocation of older adults in the US from community living to long-term care facilities (LTCFs). Specifically, it examines the predictive roles of possible and probable dementia and hospital stays in this complex health care transition.
Study Design: Utilizing data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study, a longitudinal cohort study (2011-2019), we employed a panel data approach, which consists of multiple observations over time for the same participants, allowing us to account for both cross-sectional variations (differences between participants) and time-series variations (changes in the same participant over time).
Eur Heart J Imaging Methods Pract
July 2024
Previous studies have assessed how supplementing with policosanol affects blood sugar levels. The outcomes, nevertheless, were not constant. Multiple electronic databases were searched including ISI Web of Science, Cochrane Library, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus until February 9, 2023.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe global learning initiative at Northeastern University is focused on fostering intercultural communication skills. The Dialogue of Civilization (DOC) program serves as a mechanism to achieve such a goal by offering faculty-led international experiences. In this paper, we have presented a detailed account of a DOC program that took place in Norway.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClin Med Insights Endocrinol Diabetes
July 2023
Diabetes is a chronic disease that challenges global health issues in many aspects. Diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) is one of the most common causes of reduced quality of life and increased hospitalization, amputation, treatment costs, and mortality in patients. Improper patients' knowledge, unsatisfactory education and training of healthcare workers, and limited facilities are the major cause of delayed referral and downscale management in DFUs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In academic hospitals, cardiology fellows may be the first point of contact for patients presenting with suspected ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) or acute coronary syndrome (ACS). In this study, we sought to determine the role of handheld ultrasound (HHU) in patients with suspected acute myocardial injury (AMI) when used by fellows in training, its association with the year of training in cardiology fellowship, and its influence on clinical care.
Methods: This prospective study's sample population comprised patients who presented to the Loma Linda University Medical Center Emergency Department with suspected acute STEMI.
Objectives: To investigate how balance and grip strength predicts the probability of cognitive function impairment (i.e., executive function: mild and mild-to-moderate impairment, and delayed recall) over eight years in community-dwelling older adults in the US, controlling for sex and race/ethnicity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: There is limited evidence regarding the effects of a pre-existing heart failure (HF) on the diagnostic yield of pulmonary embolism (PE) evaluation in the Emergency Department (ED).
Methods: Electronic medical record of consecutive adults who underwent a computed tomography pulmonary angiogram (CTPA) in the ED at Loma Linda University Medical Center between June 1, 2019 and March 25, 2022 were reviewed. Repeat studies for the same patient and patients with unspecified HF diagnoses or isolated right ventricular HF were excluded.
Objectives: Most older adults with dementia are assisted by multiple caregivers, but the relationship of care network structure with health care access and quality is underexamined. We sought to test the associations of care network characteristics with the physician visit experience for older adults with dementia across diverse racial/ethnic groups.
Methods: We used data on Medicare beneficiaries (aged 65+) with dementia from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (2015-2019) to fit logistic regression models to test associations between physician visit outcomes and (a) size of the potential care network and (b) proportion of potential care network members (PCNMs) currently helping with daily functioning tasks.
Objective: The authors examined the association among cognitive function, falling, and physical performance among community-dwelling older adults (ages ≥65 years).
Methods: Eight waves of the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS; 2011-2018) were assessed, with 1,225 respondents who participated in all waves. The outcomes were self-reported number of falls and NHATS Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) score.
The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus has overwhelmed hospitals with patients in need of intensive care, which is often limited in capacity and is generally reserved for patients with critical conditions. This has led to higher chances of infection being spread to non-COVID-19 patients and healthcare workers and an overall increased probability of cross contamination. The effects of design parameters on the performance of ventilation systems to control the spread of airborne particles in intensive care units are studied numerically.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Health Care Poor Underserved
March 2022
The present study examines the changes in the type and frequency of beverage consumption of Genesee County, Michigan residents before and after the Flint water crisis (FWC). Employing Speak to Your Health! Community Survey data of adults (N=1,825) and random-effects longitudinal ordered logistic regression, we examined between the frequency of daily soda, juice, and other sweetened drinks (OSD) intake in two subpopulations: respondents residing in ZIP codes affected and not affected by lead contamination. After the FWC, African Americans were more likely to consume all three beverage types compared with Whites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ageing process influences body composition and could be related to bone health. The current study was set out to evaluate the association between body adiposity index (BAI) and bone health in older adults. This is a cross-sectional study performed on 178 elderly persons (51 men and 127 women) with a mean age of 67.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: This study aims to examine the effect of concurrent mild and mild-to-moderate cognitive impairment with chronic diseases on hospital admission (HA) among community-dwelling older adults.
Method: The National Health and Aging Trends Study (2011-2018), with 1225 respondents (each wave), were used. The number of HAs within 1 year was the outcome.
A major issue in translation of the artificial intelligence platforms for automatic segmentation of echocardiograms to clinics is their generalizability. The present study introduces and verifies a novel generalizable and efficient fully automatic multi-label segmentation method for four-chamber view echocardiograms based on deep fully convolutional networks (FCNs) and adversarial training. For the first time, we used generative adversarial networks for pixel classification training, a novel method in machine learning not currently used for cardiac imaging, to overcome the generalization problem.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIran will encounter rapid population aging, resulting from increased life expectancy and fluctuating fertility rates during its eight-year war with Iraq (1980-1988). The need for long-term care in Iran is expected to increase dramatically. The purpose of this paper is to examine Iran's health care system and informal care upon discussing its demographic profile.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOverall social network size, often the sum of common lifetime relationships, including children, family, and friends, has been linked to cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's Disease. However, little research has examined the association between network size composition and cognitive function in middle-aged and older adults in the context of race/ethnicity. We investigated the associations between the number of close children, family, and friends independently with executive function (EF) and memory across a subsample of non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White participants who completed the Health and Retirement Study Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (N = 2,395).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: Social engagement is known to serve an important role in cognitive health, but there has been limited information on the role of online engagement. The present study aimed to identify the benefits of different online activities for the cognitive function of older adults.
Methods: Data came from the National Health and Aging Trend Study, Round I-V (2011-2015), with >8000 respondents from Medicare beneficiaries.
This study aims to examine the relationship between different levels of cognitive impairment (CI) and the frequency of hospital admission (HA). Data from the National Health and Aging Trend Study, Round 1 (2011), with 8,245 respondents from Medicare beneficiaries were used. The data account for the number of hospital admissions for one year before the data collection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA computer program was developed in an attempt to differentiate the dreams of males from females. Hypothesized gender predictors were based on previous literature concerning both dream content and written language features. Dream reports from home-collected dream diaries of 100 male (144 dreams) and 100 female (144 dreams) adolescent Anglophones were matched for equal length.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Trans Biomed Eng
March 2017
Goal: Ventilated patients with the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are predisposed to cyclic parenchymal overdistention and derecruitment, which may worsen existing injury. We hypothesized that intratidal variations in global mechanics, as assessed at the airway opening, would reflect such distributed processes.
Methods: We developed a computational lung model for determining local instantaneous pressure distributions and mechanical impedances continuously during a breath.
Soc Work Public Health
December 2016
This article aims to determine how various health insurance policies affect the rate of emergency room (ER) referrals in the United States. The secondary data, gathered in National Health Measurement Study (NHMS) in 2008 and 2010, was used. The authors identify the relationships between health insurance and ER referrals by using zero-inflated binomial and zero-inflated Poisson regression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo determine the impact of ventilation frequency, lung volume, and parenchymal stiffness on ventilation distribution, we developed an anatomically-based computational model of the canine lung. Each lobe of the model consists of an asymmetric branching airway network subtended by terminal, viscoelastic acinar units. The model allows for empiric dependencies of airway segment dimensions and parenchymal stiffness on transpulmonary pressure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: It is well known that the development of brain oxidative stress is one of the most serious complications of arterial hypertension that evokes brain tissue damage. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of atorvastatin treatment (20 mg/kg/day), as an antioxidant, to prevent the brain tissue oxidative stress in the hypertensive (HTN) rats.
Methods: Experiments were performed in four groups of rats (n = 5 each group): sham, sham-treated, HTN and HTN treated.
Aim: Assessment of activities of daily living (ADL) can be helpful for designing individualized rehabilitation programs for disabled individuals. Measuring and comparing the basic ADL (BADL) and instrumental ADL (IADL) independence between middle aged and senior Iranian blind war survivors (IBWS) was the aim of this study.
Methods: This cross-sectional study assessed BADL and IADL of 312 blind war survivors, using the Barthel Index and the Lawton-Bordy scale.