BACKGROUND Nursing home patients have complex mental and physical health problems, disabilities and social needs, combined with widespread prescription of psychotropic drugs. Preservation of their quality of life is an important goal. This can only be achieved within nursing homes that offer competent clinical conditions of treatment and care. COmmunication, Systematic assessment and treatment ...

PURPOSE The purpose of this article is to describe how assisted living (AL) fits with other long-term-care services. DESIGN AND METHODS We analyzed the evolution of AL, including the populations served, the services offered, and federal and state policies that create various incentives or disincentives for using AL to replace other forms of care such as nursing home care or home care. RESUL...

BACKGROUND Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is being isolated with increasingly frequency from nursing home patients. There is a limited choice of antibiotics available to treat infections caused by the organism. Control measures for nursing homes have not been well established. METHODS Using the key words "methicillin," "homes for the aged," and "long-term care," and also u...

Older people in residential care fall about three times as frequently as those living in the community. In part, this reflects higher incidences of risk factors for falls such as mobility limitations and dementia. Also, falls are an independent risk factor for admission to a nursing home. Falls in hospital settings are higher still: results from a Swedish study amounted to 6.2 falls per person ...

BACKGROUND In Canada, the rise of private-pay assisted living facilities is changing the long-term care landscape. Even so, few clinical implications of having these facilities in the spectrum of care have been studied. Our objective was to compare events and symptoms that might predispose and precipitate a move of older adults to assisted living or to a nursing home. METHODS Cross-sectional,...

A prerequisite for the success of any health or social care policy is the ability to address the concerns of the target group. The findings described in the present paper form part of a larger study of the hopes and fears that older people hold for their future. Data were collected through a cross-sectional, population-based telephone interview survey conducted in New South Wales, Australia, fr...

BACKGROUND Earlier studies show that the main reasons for admission to long-term nursing home care are cognitive impairment and functional impairments of activities of daily life. However, descriptive evidence of mobility is scant. The aims of this study were to describe mobility at admission to nursing homes and to assess the association between mobility and degree of dementia. METHODS We in...