Non-treatment decisions concerning demented patients are complex: in addition to issues concerning the health of patients, ethical and legal issues are involved. This paper describes a method for the development of a guideline that clarifies the steps to be taken in the decision making process whether to forgo curative treatment of pneumonia in psychogeriatric nursing home patients. The method ...

An assessment of mental impairment and behavioral disabilities in 289 residents in six old people's homes indicated that 50.6% were probably demented and 54% needed considerable help in daily living, 74% were taking prescribed medication, and 11% were taking four or more prescribed drugs. There was a wide variation between homes in those rated as behaviourally disabled, and in the amount of med...

Kerry Grosch, MA; Louis Medvene, PhD; and Hannah Wolcott, MA AbStrAct This research describes the development and evaluation of a 2-hour program that taught geriatric nursing assistant students person-centered caregiving skills. The person centeredness of caregiving skills among students who completed the training, as well as those who did not, was evaluated by coding their videotaped interacti...

The purpose of the study was to present a model of quality of life and related factors, to study quality of life in a group of elderly subjects, and to do preliminary testing of the model. Quality of life was defined as a sense of well-being, meaning and value. The model includes health, functional capacity, and coping mechanisms as intra-individual conditions for quality of life, while factors...

BACKGROUND The Prevention and Reactivation Care Program (PReCaP) provides a novel approach targeting hospital-related functional decline among elderly patients. Despite the high expectations, the PReCaP was not effective in preventing functional decline (ADL and iADL) among older patients. Although elderly PReCaP patients demonstrated slightly better cognitive functioning (Mini Mental State Exa...

OBJECTIVE to analyze the relationship between the perceptions of nurses about geriatric care (GC) environment and geriatric nurses' knowledge and attitudes according to unit type considering the northern and central regions of Portugal. METHOD a cross-sectional study was developed among 1068 Portuguese's nurses in five hospitals. The instrument was Geriatric Institutional Assessment Profile -...

SUMMARY BACKGROUND AND AIMS Research dealing with occupational strain and burnout in geriatric care is generally focused on the behavioral problems of the patient and/or the psychological traits or attitudes of the carers rather than on organizational functionality. This paper describes data from a survey of all geriatric professions, using the Stressful Events Questionnaire (SEQ), a tool th...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to explore if and how spiritual needs are assessed and if spiritual care is provided to Dutch nursing home residents, including residents suffering from dementia, and if and how caregivers communicate and collaborate regarding the residents' spiritual needs. DESIGN Two researchers conducted an ethnographic participatory study in a Dutch nursing home betwee...

This article reviews the significance of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) to practitioners and researchers in clinical gerontology, more than 10 years after the scale was introduced to the scientific community. This report summarizes findings from the most relevant validation studies in which this self-report for assessing depression in elderly people has been tested. Included is discussion...

BACKGROUND Negative views towards ageing and older adults may be a reason why nurses do not choose to work in gerontological nursing. Studying in another cultural context can challenge these views. The Objective was to explore nursing students' views on ageing and older adults before and after a gerontology course held abroad. DESIGN AND METHOD A qualitative approach based on content analysis...