Oslin DW, Ten Have TR, Streim JE, et al. Probing the safety of medications in the frail elderly: evidence from a randomized clinical trial of sertraline and venlafaxine in depressed nursing home residents. J Clin Psychiatry 2003;64:875–82. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

In the past decade, the population in Malaysia has been rapidly ageing. This poses new challenges and issues that threaten the ability of the elderly to independently age in place. A multistage cross-sectional study on 789 community-dwelling elderly individuals aged 60 years and above was conducted in an urban district in Malaysia to assess the geriatric syndrome of frailty. Using a multidimens...

Management of diabetes in the elderly necessitates careful consideration of concomitant geriatric syndromes and comorbid conditions that increase the risk of complications, including severe hypoglycemia. Whereas healthy older adults can use therapeutic approaches recommended for their younger counterparts, treatment plans for frail elderly patients need to be simplified and A1c and blood pressu...

Japan has moved decisively toward "socialization of care" for the frail elderly by initiating public, mandatory long-term care insurance (LTCI) on 1 April 2000. The LTCI program covers both institutional and community-based caregiving. Everyone age forty and older pays premiums. Everyone age sixty-five and older is eligible for benefits based strictly on physical and mental disability, in six c...

165 ABRIEF PERUSAL OF MY PUBLICATION RECORD will reveal something about my recent activities that may—indeed, probably should—strike you as sad: I hardly contribute anything to the biogerontology literature any more, essentially restricting myself instead to my characteristic outbursts in this space and the occasional invited book chapter. Ultimately, however, this is not a reason for sympathy,...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW This review will deliberate on contemporary concepts regarding the frailty syndrome and its association with the perioperative period. Frailty syndrome and its relevance to organ systems, scoring tools and intervention measures will be discussed in detail. RECENT FINDINGS Frail patients have a reduced ability to respond to physical stress, similar to a decreased physiologica...

Timely care for frail older people: the next battleground SIR—I read with interest the article by Silvester et al. [1] describing improvements in access to older peoples specialty beds using implementation and improvement science over a 2-year period. The paper is significant in its timing and its rigour. If Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) improves outcomes for frailer older adults wit...

The aim of this study was to identify individual predisposing risk indicators for falls in a sample of institutionalized frail elderly in southern Germany. The design was a prospective observational study with a 1-year follow-up (October 1998-September 1999). The study population included 472 long-term-care residents whose mean age was 84 years; 77% were female. Risk indicators for accidental f...

BACKGROUND The use of physical restraints by family caregivers with home-dwelling elders has not been extensively studied but it might be widespread. Furthermore, it is also not clear how home care providers who support family caregivers perceive the use of physical restraint in elders' homes. This study assessed family caregivers' and home care providers' knowledge and perceptions of physical ...

The purpose of this study was to describe the behaviors that caregivers report carrying out to maintain their own health, and to compare the health-promoting behaviors of Black and White caregivers. Although many studies have examined health-promoting behaviors, few have examined health promotion among caregivers. Reported studies of caregivers' health-promoting behaviors have not compared cult...