European Geriatric Medicine

PURPOSE: Older patients with pneumonia are commonly restricted from oral intake due to concerns towards aspiration. Eating and drinking with acknowledged risks (EDAR) is a shared decision-making process emphasising patient comfort. As part of our project to find the barriers and facilitators of EDAR, we aimed for this initial study to see how frequently EDAR was selected in practice. METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study at an acute hospital where EDAR was initially developed, of patients aged ≥ 75 years-old admitted with pneumonia and referred to speech and language therapy...

OBJECTIVES: Frailty is a significant cause of adverse health events including long-term care and hospitalization. Although information and communication technology (ICT) has become an integral part of modern life, it remains unclear whether ICT use is associated with frailty. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study (Integrated Longitudinal Studies on Aging in Japan, ILSA-J). SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Aged 75 and older data from the ILSA-J in 2017 (n = 2893)...

PURPOSE: Invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) is a devastating condition. While most attention is directed towards disease in children and adolescents, IMD poses an important cause of morbidity and mortality in adults ≥60 years. While immunization is a critical component of healthy ageing strategies, meningococcal immunization is not routinely offered to older adults. The aim of this review was to summarize clinical and epidemiological aspects of IMD and available immunization strategies, with a particular focus on disease in older individuals, to emphasize the importance of this rather neglected area...

PURPOSE: Rehabilitation after hip fracture surgery is crucial for improving physical function. Additional rehabilitation over the weekend or after working hours is reportedly associated with improved physical function; however, this may not apply to an aging population, including patients aged > 90 years. This study aimed to investigate the association between additional weekend rehabilitation and functional outcomes in different age groups. METHODS: This study analyzed a cohort of patients aged ≥ 60 years who had hip fractures and were operated on from 2010 to 2018...

PURPOSE: Older people have the highest use of antibiotics for acute and chronic urinary tract infection (UTI), despite diagnostic uncertainty and the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. We aim to describe use-patterns of UTI antibiotics two years prior to and following care home admission in Denmark. METHODS: This was a register-based nationwide drug-utilization study. In a cohort comprising all Danish residents admitted into a care home from 2015 to 2021, we described the use of UTI antibiotics, and examined differences between regions and individual care homes in rates of UTI antibiotic use...

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to explore the effects of 24 weeks of three-duration Tai-Chi (TC) practice on depression and sleep quality in older women. METHODS: A total of 124 older women were randomly divided into four groups: short-time group (SG, n = 31, mean age: 65.3), medium-time group (MG, n = 30, mean age: 65.7), long-time group (LG, n = 32, mean age: 64.9) and control group (CG, n = 31, mean age: 66...

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PURPOSE: Assessing and comparing German and Dutch nursing home perspectives on residents' hospital transfers. METHODS: Cross-sectional study among German and Dutch nursing homes. Two surveys were conducted in May 2022, each among 600 randomly selected nursing homes in Germany and the Netherlands. The questionnaires were identical for both countries. The responses were compared between the German and Dutch participants. RESULTS: We received 199 German (response: 33...

BACKGROUND: Dutch hospitals are required to screen older patients for the risk of developing functional decline using the Safety Management System (VMS) which assesses four domains associated with functional decline; fall risk, risk of delirium, malnutrition, and physical impairment. PURPOSE: The aim is twofold, first to compare the VMS frailty instrument as a frailty screener with existing frailty instruments and second to provide an overview of the available evidence...

PURPOSE: Reduced appetite is a common issue among older adults. However, its formal assessment is rarely undertaken in clinical practice. The aim of the study was to check the frequency of reporting of appetite status in hospitalized older adults and to analyze the terms documented by physicians when reporting reduced appetite. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of electronic medical records of hospitalized patients aged 65 and older was conducted. To determine patients' appetite status structured appetite assessment or any references related to appetite were considered...

PURPOSE: Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) is the cornerstone of high-quality care for older adults. There is no current gold standard to guide what should be included as the baseline measure for CGAs. We examined what metrics are being captured in CGA baseline assessments completed by community based integrated care teams in Ireland. METHODS: CGA's care pathways in Ireland are usually initiated with a written document that establish patients baseline in various assessment areas...

PURPOSE: Screening for frailty in people admitted with emergency surgical pathology can initiate timely referrals to enhanced perioperative services such as intensive care and geriatric medicine. However, there has been little research exploring surgical healthcare professionals' opinions to frailty assessment, or accuracy in identification. This study aimed to assess the knowledge, behaviour, and attitudes of healthcare professionals to frailty assessment in emergency surgical admissions...

PURPOSE: The purposes of the study was to describe the degree of agreement between geriatricians with the answers given by an AI tool (ChatGPT) in response to questions related to different areas in geriatrics, to study the differences between specialists and residents in geriatrics in terms of the degree of agreement with ChatGPT, and to analyse the mean scores obtained by areas of knowledge/domains. METHODS: An observational study was conducted involving 126 doctors from 41 geriatric medicine departments in Spain...

PURPOSE: The ideal method for identifying frailty remains unclear, but the condition is associated with poor prognoses in many illnesses. Despite the availability of studies, the prognostic implications of frailty on older patients with pneumonia remains unexplored. To determine the burden and effect of frailty on selected clinical outcomes among older patients with pneumonia. METHODS: We searched Medline, Google Scholar, and Science Direct databases for articles published in English following the PRISMA framework to guide our review...

PURPOSE: Falls are a major and growing health care problem in older adults. A patient portal has the potential to provide older adults with fall-prevention advice to reduce fall-risk. However, to date, the needs and preferences regarding a patient portal in older people who have experienced falls have not been explored. This study assesses content preferences, potential barriers and facilitators with regard to using a patient portal, as perceived by older people who have experienced falls, and explores regional differences between European participants...

PURPOSE: Determining the strength and area of the swallowing muscles is important in patients with sarcopenic dysphagia. Although the normative data on the strength of the swallowing muscles have been reported, those of the area of the geniohyoid muscle are poorly investigated. We investigated the cross-sectional area of the geniohyoid muscle in Japanese subjects without dysphagia using ultrasonography to determine the normative and cut-off values. METHODS: 142 subjects without dysphagia were included...

PURPOSE: After hospitalization, older persons may face a decline in physical function and daily independence. In-hospital exercise interventions can mitigate this decline, and continued support from primary healthcare post-discharge may enhance sustainability. This study aimed to explore home rehabilitation therapists' experiences of supporting physical exercise after acute hospitalization, including exercise programs initiated during hospital stay. METHODS: This qualitative study was conducted alongside a randomized-controlled trial to investigate prerequisites for a transitional care intervention...

PURPOSE: Sarcopenia is a condition defined as loss of muscle mass and strength, associated with poor functional performance and disability. Sarcopenia can be exacerbated or worsened in presence of inflammation, sedentary lifestyle and cytokine imbalance, thus it frequently occurs in people affected by rheumatic diseases. This systematic literature review aims to explore the association between sarcopenia and spondyloarthritis (SpA) and its most frequent manifestation, i.e. ankylosing spondylitis (AS)...

PURPOSE: There is a need for an easily measurable and reliable surrogate marker for physical frailty. This study aims to investigate the predictive capacity of adductor pollicis muscle thickness (AMPT), which can be easily measured externally and minimally influenced by subcutaneous adipose tissue, for physical frailty. METHODS: A total of 589 patients (16.3% physically frail, 54.7% pre-frail, 29% robust) were included. Comprehensive geriatric assessments and anthropometric measurements of the patients were performed...

INTRODUCTION: The need to develop and evaluate frailty-related interventions is increasingly important, and inclusion of patient-reported outcomes is vital. Patient-reported outcomes can be defined as measures of health, quality of life or functional status reported directly by patients with no clinician interpretation. Numerous validated questionnaires can thus be considered patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). This review aimed to identify existing PROMs currently used in quantitative research that may be suitable for older people with frailty...