AIM The management of severely agitated elderly patients is not easy, and limited guidelines are available to assist practitioners. At a Sydney hospital, an Aggression Response Team (ART) comprising clinical and security staff can be alerted when a staff member has safety concerns. Our aims were to describe the patient population referred for ART calls, reasons for and interventions during ART ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effectiveness of a training and support intervention for nursing home staff in reducing the proportion of residents with dementia who are prescribed neuroleptics. DESIGN Cluster randomised controlled trial with blinded assessment of outcome. SETTING 12 specialist nursing homes for people with dementia in London, Newcastle, and Oxford. PARTICIPANTS Residents of th...

Agitation is an acute behavioral emergency requiring immediate intervention. Traditional methods of treating agitated patients, ie, routine restraints and involuntary medication, have been replaced with a much greater emphasis on a noncoercive approach. Experienced practitioners have found that if such interventions are undertaken with genuine commitment, successful outcomes can occur far more ...

Acutely agitated and combative patients are commonly seen and evaluated by health care providers in the emergency department. Treatment options have evolved significantly in recent years with the advent of intramuscular atypical antipsychotics and an expanded repertoire of patient-friendly oral formulations. Selection of the ideal pharmacologic treatment of an acutely agitated patient strengthe...

BACKGROUND Association of persistent left superior vena cava (PLSVC) and sinus venosus-type atrial septal defect (SVASD) is rare. We describe a patient with dilated coronary sinus (CS) found to have PLSVC and SVASD. CASE REPORT The patient is a 60-year-old man with history of stroke who underwent a transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE) for evaluation of shortness of breath. TTE demonstrated a ma...

INTRODUCTION The prevalence, risk factors, treatment practices, and outcomes of agitation in patients undergoing prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV) in the long-term acute care hospital (LTACH) setting are not well understood. We compared agitation risk factors, management strategies, and outcomes between patients who developed agitation and those who did not, in LTACH patients undergoing PM...

INTRODUCTION Agitation is a major problem in acute schizophrenia. Only a few studies have tested antipsychotic agents in severely agitated patients, mainly because of legal issues. Furthermore, most studies were limited to the first 24 hours. We aimed to investigate the efficacy of oral haloperidol, risperidone, and olanzapine in reducing psychotic agitation in severely agitated patients with s...

EG1 is a modular glycoside hydrolase family 5 endoglucanase from Volvariella volvacea consisting of an N-terminal carbohydrate-binding module (CBM1) and a catalytic domain (CD). The ratios of soluble to insoluble reducing sugar produced from filter paper after 8 and 24 h of exposure to EG1 were 6.66 and 8.56, respectively, suggesting that it is a processive endoglucanase. Three derivatives of E...