Regional differences in the consumption of Benzodiazepines: an analysis from Belgium

Peer reviewe

Oud word je niet alleen. Een enquête over eenzaamheid en sociaal isolement bij ouderen in België

Koning Boudewinjstichtin

Un tour d’horizon du travail social : Développement d’un instrument de gestion du travail social de l’hôpital

Un tour d’horizon du travail social : Développement d’un instrument de gestion du travail social de l’hôpital Poursuite de la recherche en hôpital psychiatriqu

Performantiemaatstaven voor ontslagmanagement. Een aanzet tot kwaliteitsmeting

peer reviewe

Implementation of discharge management for geriatric patients at risk of readmission or institutionalization

Objective. To evaluate whether implementation of discharge management by trained social workers or nurses reduces hospital readmissions and institutionalizations of geriatric patients in a real-world setting. Design. Quasi-experimental design. Setting. Six general hospitals in Belgium. Participants. A representative sample of 824 patients, 355 of whom were assigned to the experimental group receiving comprehensive discharge management and 469 to the control group receiving usual care. Inclusion criteria were patients admitted to a geriatric, rehabilitation, or internal medicine ward, not residing in a nursing home, and showing risk of readmission or institutionalization on admission in the hospital. Intervention. In-hospital discharge planning according to a case management protocol allowing for adjustment to participating hospitals' case mix and patients' and families' specific needs. Main outcome measures. Hospital readmission within 15 and 90 days post discharge; institutionalization at discharge and within 15 and 90 days post discharge. Results. Discharge management resulted in fewer institutionalizations (n = 53; 14.9%) compared with usual care (n = 130; 23.7%) (adjusted odds ratio = 0.47; CI 95% = 0.31-0.70). Readmission rates between the intervention and usual care group were not significantly different. Conclusions. This implementation project showed that a discharge planning intervention can reduce institutionalization rates of elderly patients in real-life setting

Parathyroid hormone plasma concentrations in response to low 25-OH vitamin D circulating levels increases with age in elderly women.

Peer reviewe

How light and occupational therapy intervention could fight some psychogeriatric symptoms

Purpose: Aggregated results of systematic reviews separately show how light used as a treatment and some occupational therapy interventions could have a positive impact on psychobehavioural disorders in older people. Since the beginning of June 2014 the Walloon Government has been financing a project which consists of a non-pharmacological approach that combines light and occupational therapy for a psychogeriatric population with specific symptoms: spatial and temporal disorientations, apathy, depression, agitation, anxiety, confusion and circadian disorder. The objective of this abstract is to expose the assumptions that the combination of two different light devices and one specific occupational therapy program could have an impact on the different symptoms of a psychogeriatric population. Methods: To build our hypothesis, two literature reviews have been achieved. The first one concerning the use of light as therapy gathered 30 studies while the other one about occupational therapy activities collected 35 articles. Results: Despite of a heterogeneity between studies dealing with light and occupational therapy, the combination of these two non-pharmacological interventions might fight the depressive syndrome, reduce the temporal disorientation thanks to a regularity in the period of activity, restore the circadian rhythm and so reduce some troubles that can be linked to them: sleep disorder, risk of fall, apathy, agitation, behavioural and cognitive troubles (attention, concentration). Moreover, one of the two light devices used which can modulate the light intensity according to the rooms might reduce the spatial disorientation if it’s employed as a landmark. Conclusions: Based on literature reviews and our experience into this field it’s seems that a non-pharmacological approach involving light and occupational therapy intervention could have a positive effect on symptoms of psychogeriatric population. In admitting that those effects are becoming true after experimentation and analyses, we can also expect an improvement of the quality of life