Aim: We investigated the characteristics of people who died in a special elderly nursing home and the current status of end-of-life decision-making.
Methods: Subjects comprised 168 residents who were discharged from a special elderly nurshing home in Yokohama between April 1998 and June 2008. A total of 3 patients were excluded from this study due to insufficient inclusion criteria. We collected and retrospectively examined the basic descriptive information regarding the terminal phase of care from medical records, death certificates, and the notes of nurses, caregivers and counseling staff.
Result: Of a total of 165 subjects comprising 38 men (23%) and 127 women (77%), 30 (18%) died in a nursing home facility (facility mortality group), 101 (61%) died in hospitals (hospital mortality group) and 34 (21%) were discharged from special elderly nursing homes for transfer to long-term hospitalization (hospitalization group). To clarify the factors which led to death within the facilities, we analyzed: 1) age at discharge, 2) sex, 3) residency period, 4) number of hospitalizations, 5) length of hospital stay, 6) number of children, 7) number of conferences regarding end-of-life care in 2 groups: the facility mortality group and all others as the second group, as explanatory variables on multiple discriminant analysis. This revealed a higher number of conferences, a higher age at discharge, and a smaller number of hospitalizations in the facility mortality group. Only 12 (7%) people were able to convey by themselves how they wanted to spend the remainder of their lives, and 61 (37%) people conveyed this information via family members. However, 100 (61%) people were unable to confirm it by either self-report or family members.
Conclusion: The people who died in special elderly nursing homes had a higher age, fewer hospitalizations, and had been involved in more conferences regarding terminal care. However, it was very hard to confirm individual intentions regarding terminal care periods. Further studies will be necessary to determine what kind of terminal care is needed in special elderly nursing homes when it is difficult to confirm individual or family intention regarding the terminal period.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3143/geriatrics.48.509 | DOI Listing |
JAMA Cardiol
January 2025
Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Importance: A comprehensive lipid panel is recommended by guidelines to evaluate atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk, but uptake is low.
Objective: To evaluate whether direct outreach including bulk orders with and without text messaging increases lipid screening rates.
Design, Setting, And Participants: Pragmatic randomized clinical trial conducted from June 6, 2023, to September 6, 2023, at 2 primary care practices at an academic health system among patients aged 20 to 75 years with at least 1 primary care visit in the past 3 years who were overdue for lipid screening.
JAMA Netw Open
January 2025
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco.
Importance: Multiple organ dysfunction (MOD) is a leading cause of in-hospital child mortality. For survivors, posthospitalization health care resource use and costs are unknown.
Objective: To evaluate longitudinal health care resource use and costs after hospitalization with MOD in infants (aged <1 year) and children (aged 1-18 years).
JAMA Netw Open
January 2025
Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California.
Importance: Limited research explores mental health disparities between individuals in sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations and cisgender heterosexual (non-SGM) populations using national-level data.
Objective: To explore mental health disparities between SGM and non-SGM populations across sexual orientation, sex assigned at birth, and gender identity within the All of Us Research Program.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This cross-sectional study used survey data and linked electronic health records of eligible All of Us Research Program participants from May 31, 2017, to June 30, 2022.
JAMA Netw Open
January 2025
Department of Emergency Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.
Importance: There is a clear benefit to body armor against firearms; however, it remains unclear how these vests may influence day-to-day patient encounters when worn by emergency medical services (EMS).
Objective: To determine the association of ballistic vests worn by EMS clinicians with workplace violence (WPV) and disparities in care among racial and/or ethnic minority patients.
Design, Setting, And Participants: Prospective cohort study of a volunteer-based sample of EMS clinicians at a large, multistate EMS agency encompassing 15 ground sites across the Midwest from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024.
JAMA Netw Open
January 2025
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, Maryland.
Importance: Sensitivity to environmental stress and adversity may influence lung cancer risk, highlighting a critical link between psychosocial factors and cancer etiology.
Objective: To evaluate whether genetically estimated sensitivity to environmental stress and adversity is associated with lung cancer risk.
Design, Setting, And Participants: Data were obtained from a genome-wide association study identifying 37 independent genetic variants strongly associated with sensitivity to environmental stress and adversity and a cross-ancestry genome-wide meta-analysis from the International Lung Cancer Consortium.
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