Fall risk assessment

UNLABELLED: Although FRAX is used for fracture risk evaluation, this tool does not include balance and fall risk. The association between the predictors of falls and high FRAX scores we found in this study suggests that risk indicators for falls may add substantial value to FRAX by improving fracture risk prediction. PURPOSE: This observational, descriptive, and cross-sectional study aimed to assess the fall risk predictors and explore their association with FRAX in Turkish patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis...

OBJECTIVE: Although aging has a strong impact on visual acuity (VA) and falls, their interaction is understudied in generally healthy older adults. This study aimed to examine if and to what extent baseline VA is associated with an increased risk of all and injurious falls over 3 years in generally healthy community-dwelling older adults. DESIGN: Observational analysis of DO-HEALTH, a double-blind, randomized controlled trial. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Multicenter trial with 7 European centers: Zurich, Basel, Geneva (Switzerland), Berlin (Germany), Innsbruck (Austria), Toulouse (France), and Coimbra (Portugal), including 2157 community-dwelling adults aged 70 years and older without any major health events in the 5 years prior to enrollment, sufficient mobility, and good cognitive status...

BACKGROUND: To prepare nursing students to deliver high-quality care, educators need strategies to foster person-centered care (PCC). PURPOSE: This pilot study evaluated an intervention with interactive case studies on undergraduate nursing students' PCC competency. METHODS: We conducted a pilot study with sophomore undergraduate nursing students (n = 39) from a Midwestern US university. We developed a 90-minute class seminar with interactive case studies highlighting how patient preferences, values, and circumstances could influence fall risk...

INTRODUCTION: Noninvasive continuous blood pressure monitoring has the potential to improve patient treatment in the hospital setting. Such noninvasive devices can be applied earlier in the treatment process to empower nurses and clinicians to react more quickly to patient deterioration with the added benefit of eliminating the risks associated with invasive monitoring. However, emerging technologies must be capable of reproducing current clinical measures for medical decision making...

BACKGROUND: Alcohol use is an established yet modifiable risk factor for breast cancer. However, recent research indicates that the vast majority of U.S. women are unaware that alcohol use is a risk factor for breast cancer. There is limited information about the sociodemographic characteristics and alcohol use correlates of awareness of the alcohol use and breast cancer link, and this is critically important for health promotion and intervention efforts. In this study, we assessed prevalence of the awareness of alcohol use as a risk factor for breast cancer among U...

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to investigate the actual application, knowledge, and training needs of comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) among geriatric practitioners in China. METHODS: A total of 225 geriatric practitioners attending the geriatric medicine or geriatric nursing training were recruited for this cross-sectional study. The questionnaire included demographics, healthcare institution characteristics, the actual application, knowledge, training needs, and barriers to CGA and geriatric syndromes (GS)...

BACKGROUND: Clinical decision support (CDS) tools that incorporate machine learning-derived content have the potential to transform clinical care by augmenting clinicians' expertise. To realize this potential, such tools must be designed to fit the dynamic work systems of the clinicians who use them. We propose the use of academic detailing-personal visits to clinicians by an expert in a specific health IT tool-as a method for both ensuring the correct understanding of that tool and its evidence base and identifying factors influencing the tool's implementation...

Acute compartment syndrome (ACS) is a severe orthopedic issue that, if left untreated, can result in lasting nerve and muscle damage or even necessitate amputation. The association between admission laboratory blood test indicators and the occurrence of ACS in patients with tibial diaphysis fractures is currently a subject of debate. The objective of this research was to identify the contributing factors for ACS in individuals suffering from tibial diaphysis fractures. In this retrospective study, we collected data on a total of 705 individuals from our hospital, comprising 86 ACS patients and 619 non-ACS patients with tibial diaphysis fractures...

BACKGROUND: Managing postoperative pain while minimizing opioid-related adverse drug events (ORADEs) remains a significant challenge. The OPI•AID Zone Tool is proposed as a novel clinical decision support tool that - both graphically and in a scoring-system - represents the relationship between pain management and the occurrence of ORADEs, aiming to enhance patient outcomes in postoperative care. The OPI•AID Zone Tool places pain score on the x-axis and an ORADE score on the y-axis, and stratifies patients into five zones to reflect the composite impact of pain severity and ORADEs on the quality of postoperative patient care...

The sediment and soil in the Juma River channel pose a risk of pollution to the downstream ecological environment of Beijing and Xiong'an New Area. To address this issue, sediments and soil samples were collected along the river from the source to the Zhangfang outlet. The samples were further divided into three types:main stream sediment (29 samples), riverbank soil (27 samples), and farmland soil (26 samples). Enrichment factor analysis and the potential ecological risk index were employed to investigate the ecological risk...

Soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections are among the most common infections that affect the poorest and most deprived communities. In most developing countries, children aged 5 to 15 years are at risk for chronic helminth infection and associated morbidity. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of STH infections and associated risk factors among three government elementary schools in Dembecha town, Ethiopia. We conducted a school-based cross-sectional study involving 316 participants between November 2019 and March 2020...

RATIONALE & OBJECTIVE: Patients treated with dialysis are commonly prescribed multiple medications (polypharmacy), including some potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). PIMs are associated with an increased risk of medication harm (eg, falls, fractures, hospitalization). Deprescribing is a solution that proposes to stop, reduce, or switch medications to a safer alternative. Although deprescribing pairs well with routine medication reviews, it can be complex and time-consuming...

BACKGROUND: Diagnosing atypical glandular cells (AGC) is a significant challenge in cytomorphology. METHODS: A retrospective study was undertaken to assess the prevalence of AGC and the subsequent histological outcomes over 5 years at a single institution. RESULTS: A total of 159,649 ThinPrep Pap tests, including 395 cases of AGC, were retrieved, of which 330 AGC cases had follow-up histopathology. Among these 330 cases, 43.9% were classified as AGC not otherwise specified, followed by AGC-endocervical cells at 33...

Background: Perturbation-based balance training (PBT) is a promising fall risk reduction method that involves inducing unexpected perturbations to balance to train participants reactive balance control. Due to the unpredictable nature of PBT, its acceptability to older adults could present a barrier to the implementation of PBT in the community. Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the perceived acceptability of a community-based PBT program to both older adults and healthcare professionals (HCPs)...

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies have established an understanding of reasons for e-cigarette use and associated e-cigarette use patterns such as use frequency, yet the critical extension to associated e-cigarette dependence outcome remains under-researched. This study used longitudinal data to examine whether the reasons for e-cigarette use predict a higher/lower level of e-cigarette dependence. METHODS: This study recruited college students who were current e-cigarette users from Fall 2019 to Fall 2020 (four semesters) at three public universities in the Midwest and South of the U...

The elderly population is growing rapidly in the world and falls are becoming a big problem for society. Currently, clinical assessments of gait and posture include functional evaluations, objective, and subjective scales. They are considered the gold standard to indicate optimal mobility and performance individually, but their sensitivity and specificity are not good enough to predict who is at higher risk of falling. An innovative approach for fall prediction is the machine learning. Machine learning is a computer-science area that uses statistics and optimization methods in a large amount of data to make outcome predictions...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the postural balance in COPD patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Physical activity, anxiety and depression symptoms, mood, and falls were also assessed in this population. METHODS: Moderate to severe COPD patients were assessed for laboratory and clinical postural balance (force platform and mini-balance evaluation systems test (Mini-BESTest)), physical activity (accelerometry), OSA (polysomnography), sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), sleepiness (Epworth Sleepiness Scale), anxiety and depression symptoms (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), dyspnoea (modified Medical Research Council), clinical status (COPD Assessment Test) and mood (Brunel Mood Scale)...

BACKGROUND: comprehensive medication management (CMM) can reduce medication-related risks of falling. However, knowledge about inter-individual treatment effects and patient-related barriers remains scarce. OBJECTIVE: to gain in-depth insights into how geriatric patients who have fallen view their medication-related risks of falling and to identify effects and barriers of a CMM in preventing falls. DESIGN: complementary mixed-methods pre-post study, based on an embedded quasi-experimental model...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Patient portals are secure online platforms that allow patients to perform electronic health management tasks and engage in bidirectional information exchange with their care team. Some health systems administer Medicare Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) health risk assessments through the patient portal. Scalable opportunities from portal-based administration of risk assessments are not well understood. Our objective is 2-fold-to understand who receives vs misses an AWV and health risk assessment and explore who might be missed with portal-based administration...

Pyrimethamine (PYR), a STAT3 inhibitor, has been shown to reduce tumour burden in mouse cancer models. It is unclear how much of a reduction occurred or whether the PYR dosages and route of administration used in mice were consistent with the FDA's recommendations for drug repurposing. Search engines such as ScienceDirect, PubMed/MEDLINE, and other databases, including Google Scholar, were thoroughly searched, as was the reference list. The systematic review includes fourteen (14) articles. The risk of bias (RoB) was assessed using SYRCLE's guidelines...