Background: Caregiver awareness of the abilities of those they care for has much practical importance, especially from the safety standpoint.
Objectives: To determine whether the caregivers of persons with memory impairment or Alzheimer's disease know if their persons are able to recall their own drugs and medical histories.
Method: Persons with prodromal or probable AD (persons with AD) and their caregivers who were visiting our medical school's neurology and internal medicine clinics for routine follow-up care were recruited on the days of their appointments. Sixty-four caregiver-person with AD dyads were recruited. We first asked the caregivers to predict the ability of their persons with AD to answer questions about their drugs and medical histories. We then asked the persons with AD the questions to determine the accuracy of their caregivers' predictions.
Results: Considering the caregivers of those with Mini-Mental State Exam scores ≥24, 41% incorrectly predicted whether their persons with AD could recall the number of drugs they were taking, 24% incorrectly predicted whether they could recall the names of the drugs, and 34% incorrectly predicted whether they could recall why they were taking the drugs. Most of the caregivers' errors were overestimations. As expected, the persons with AD themselves had much difficulty in answering the questions; only 30% could recall the number of drugs they were taking, only 14% could recall the names of the drugs, and only 16% could recall why they were taking the drugs.
Conclusions: Many caregivers of persons with memory impairment or AD are unaware of their persons' inability to recall their drugs and medical histories. Particularly concerning is the relatively high frequency of caregiver overestimations of the abilities of their persons with AD, which highlights a safety concern and presents an opportunity for caregiver education.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1471301218820969 | DOI Listing |
J Integr Med
December 2024
Institute of Interdisciplinary Integrative Medicine Research, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 201203, China. Electronic address:
Objective: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic autoimmune disease that affects the small joints of the whole body and degrades the patients' quality of life. Zhengqing Fengtongning (ZF) is a traditional Chinese medicine preparation used to treat RA. ZF may cause liver injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Transl Med
December 2024
Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, 600 Tianhe Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou, China.
Background: Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) reinfection, particularly short-term reinfection, poses challenges to the management of rheumatic diseases and may increase adverse clinical outcomes. This study aims to develop machine learning models to predict and identify the risk of short-term COVID-19 reinfection in patients with rheumatic diseases.
Methods: We developed four prediction models using explainable machine learning to assess the risk of short-term COVID-19 reinfection in 543 patients with rheumatic diseases.
Eur J Emerg Med
December 2024
Emergency Department, Azienda Sanitaria Locale Torino 3 (ASL TO3) Ospedale E. Agnelli, Pinerolo.
Background And Importance: Effective and safe procedural sedation is pivotal for the quality of care in the emergency department (ED).
Objectives: The aim of this work is to evaluate the feasibility, effectiveness, and safety procedural sedation performed by emergency physicians in the ED setting in Italy.
Design/setting And Participants/intervention: Following a specific training of the staff and with the adoption of a standardized protocol, a registry of procedural sedations performed on adult patients in 10 Italian EDs was compiled from 2019 to 2022; the following basic data were recorded: demographic and clinical information, procedure's indication, administered drugs, predefined, and actual sedation level.
J Dent (Shiraz)
December 2024
Oral and Dental Disease Research Center, School of Dentistry, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
Medical emergencies, though rare, may occur unpredictably in a dental office during or after dental procedures. It may occur accidentally or subsequent to systemic problems of patients. These series of clinical events entail instantaneous management to evade any potential consequences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBipolar depression is commonly accompanied by cognitive impairments. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is emerging as a novel non-invasive treatment for bipolar depression. Given the portability and safety of tDCS, we developed a home-based protocol with real-time supervision.
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