Role of body temperature in diagnosing bacterial infection in nursing home residents.

Objectives: To provide empirically based recommendations for incorporating body temperature into clinical decision-making regarding diagnosing infection in nursing home (NH) residents.

Design: Retrospective.

Setting: Twelve North Carolina NHs.

Does adherence to the Loeb minimum criteria reduce antibiotic prescribing rates in nursing homes?

Objectives: The Loeb minimum criteria (LMC), developed by a 2001 consensus conference, are minimum standards for initiation of antibiotics in long term care settings, intended to reduce inappropriate prescribing. This study examined the relationship between nursing home prescriber adherence to the LMC and antibiotic prescribing rates, overall and for each of three specific conditions (urinary tract infections, respiratory infections, and skin and soft tissue infections).

Design: We performed a cross-sectional analysis at the resident-day level.

Caregiving and cognitive function in older women: evidence for the healthy caregiver hypothesis.

Objectives: Recent findings of better health outcomes in older caregivers than noncaregivers suggest a healthy caregiver hypothesis (HCH) model may be more appropriate than the stress process model for evaluating the health effects of caregiving. In a cross-sectional study, we tested the HCH on two cognitive domains: verbal memory and processing speed.

Method: Participants from the Caregiver Study of Osteoporotic Fractures who had a 2-year follow-up interview were categorized as continuous caregivers (n = 194), former caregivers (n = 148), or continuous noncaregivers (n = 574).

The nursing home dining assistant program: a demonstration project.

The purpose of this study was to extend earlier research on the dining assistant (DA) federal regulation allowing trained non-nursing staff to provide feeding assistance care in nursing homes. Observations were conducted pre- and post-implementation, with periodic observations during implementation. To assess sustainability, data were analyzed at 12 months post-implementation.

Elderly patients with hip fracture with positive affect have better functional recovery over 2 years.

Objectives: To evaluate whether patients with hip fracture with high positive affect had better functioning than those with low positive affect or depressive symptoms in three performance-based measures over 2 years after the fracture.

Design: Longitudinal study with assessments at baseline and 2, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months posthospitalization.

Setting: Community.

Are all caregivers created equal? Stress in caregivers to adults with and without dementia.

Objective: Caregiving for older adults is stressful; however, by treating caregivers as a homogenous group, it is possible that stress-related factors are misrepresented for some. This study of 349 elderly caregivers explored mediators of the caregiving / stress relationship for caregivers to adults with (n = 106), and without (n = 243) dementia.

Methods: The sample was from the Caregiver Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (CG-SOF), ancillary to SOF, a four-site cohort of 9,704 women.

Leisure-time exercise and overall physical activity in older women caregivers and non-caregivers from the Caregiver-SOF Study.

Background: Elderly caregivers report less leisure-time physical activity than same-aged non-caregivers. However, through caregiving tasks, caregivers may be as physically active as non-caregivers. This study compared leisure-time exercise and overall physical activity in elderly women caregivers and non-caregivers.