Activity promotion for community-dwelling older people: a survey of the contribution of primary care nurses.

Study Aims: To discover the current level of nurse-led involvement in activity promotion for older people in primary care and to explore the knowledge and attitudes of primary care nurses about health benefits of activity promotion for older people.

Background: The importance of improving and maintaining activity levels in later life is well established. However, intervention studies show that the uptake of and adherence to physical activity programmes by older people are highly variable.

Community based yoga classes for type 2 diabetes: an exploratory randomised controlled trial.

Background: Yoga is a popular therapy for diabetes but its efficacy is contested. The aim of this study was to explore the feasibility of researching community based yoga classes in Type 2 diabetes with a view to informing the design of a definitive, multi-centre trial

Methods: The study design was an exploratory randomised controlled trial with in-depth process evaluation. The setting was two multi-ethnic boroughs in London, UK; one with average and one with low mean socio-economic deprivation score.

Can primary care identify an 'at risk' group in the older population.

The promotion of health and independence for older people through preventative strategies is rising up the public health agenda in many countries and has been made a government policy objective in the UK. Despite forty years of experimentation, community nursing and general practice involvement in this field has been characterized by a lack of evidence to support broad screening and surveillance programmes and a failure to reach consensus on the most effective approaches to health promotion in later life. One initiative brought together community nursing, general practice and the voluntary social welfare sector in an inner urban setting to proactively identify and address unmet need and promote health through short term case management in an older population.

The development of a short instrument to identify common unmet needs in older people in general practice.

Background: No structured needs assessment tool exists that is appropriate for older people and also suitable for use in routine consultations in general practice.

Aims: To engage older people in the development of a brief, valid, practical, and acceptable instrument to help identify common unmet needs suitable for use in routine clinical practice in primary care.

Design Of Study: User involvement in a multi-stages approach to heuristic development.

Older people's services. A picture of health.

A scheme offering joint health and social care assessments to people aged over 75 in inner London identified more than a quarter in need of services. The older people were accessed via general practice, but this proved an inefficient way of identifying the target population. In some practices, almost half of those contacted were no longer at the same address.