Prescribing in the oldest old inpatients: a retrospective analysis of patients referred for specialist geriatric consultation.

Background: While medications may prolong life and prevent morbidity in older people, adverse effects of polypharmacy are increasingly recognised. As patients age and become frail, prescribing may be expected to focus more on symptom control and minimise potentially harmful preventive medication use that confer little benefit within a short lifespan. Whether prescribing practice shifts to one of symptom controls among the oldest old admitted to hospital remains unclear.

Self-poisoning by older Australians: a cohort study.

Objective: To examine the epidemiology and severity of self-poisoning by older people in Australia; to compare these data with those for overdoses in younger adults.

Design, Setting, Participants: A cohort study of people presenting to a tertiary toxicology centre after self-poisoning over 26 years (1987-2012).

Main Outcome Measures: Hospital length of stay (LOS); types of drug ingested; intensive care unit (ICU) admissions; in-hospital deaths.

General versus spinal anaesthesia and postoperative delirium in an orthogeriatric population.

Aim: Postoperative delirium is common among elderly hip surgery patients. We aimed to pragmatically evaluate whether type of anaesthesia influenced postoperative delirium in an orthogeriatric population following hip fracture.

Method: This observational study comprises prospectively collected data on hip fracture patients admitted between October 2010 and November 2011.