Predictors of rehabilitation outcomes: a comparison of Israeli and Italian geriatric post-acute care (PAC) facilities using the minimum data set (MDS).

Objectives: To understand the relative contribution of sociodemographic, clinical, and health care features to rehabilitation outcomes in Israel and in Italy in post-acute care (PAC) facilities.

Design: Prospective cross-national study

Setting: Two hospital geriatric PAC departments: Harzfeld Geriatric Hospital, Gedera, Israel, and Catholic University of Sacred Heart Geriatric Hospital, Rome, Italy.

Participants: Post-acute care patients aged 65 and older admitted consecutively for stabilization, improvement, or rehabilitation to 3 departments in Harzfeld Geriatric Hospital, Gedera, Israel from April, 1999 through February, 2002 (N = 364), and to the post-acute Geriatric Rehabilitation Unit of the "A.

Profile and prognosis of febrile elderly patients with bacteremic urinary tract infection.

Objective: To describe the profile of elderly patients with bacteremic urinary tract infections (UTI) and correlate clinical and laboratory findings with the outcome in order to identify independent predictors of mortality.

Methods: This retrospective study took place in a large community-based, geriatric hospital and included 191 patients aged 75-105 years with urine and blood cultures simultaneously positive for bacterial organisms. Records were analysed for demographic information, clinical and laboratory data over a 29 month period.

A "fishy remedy": an unusual transmission of Vibrio vulnificus infection.

This case report describes a unique transmission of Vibrio vulnificus infection. A 38-year-old woman with recurrent cellulitis and chronic ulcer on her leg developed necrotizing cellulitis and sepsis caused by V. vulnificus.