Variability of total phenytoin serum concentrations within elderly nursing home residents

Neurology ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 555-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Birnbaum ◽  
N. A. Hardie ◽  
I. E. Leppik ◽  
J. M. Conway ◽  
S. E. Bowers ◽  
...  

Background: Approximately 6% of all elderly nursing home residents receive phenytoin. Phenytoin concentrations are often measured to guide therapy.Objective: To evaluate the intraresident variability among multiple measurements of total phenytoin serum concentrations in nursing home residents.Methods: This was an observational study of 56 elderly (≥65 years) nursing home residents from 32 nursing homes who had at least 3 phenytoin concentrations measured while on the same dose of phenytoin for at least 4 weeks and who were not taking any interfering concomitant medications. These were a subset of 387 elderly nursing home residents from 112 nursing homes across the United States who had total phenytoin concentration measurements between June 1998 and December 2000.Results: The mean age was 80.1 years (range, 65 to 100 years) and 58.9% were women. The mean daily dose of phenytoin per resident was 4.9 ± 1.5 mg/kg. Total phenytoin concentrations within an elderly nursing home resident varied as much as two- to threefold, even though there was no change in dose. The person with the smallest variability had a minimum concentration of 10.0 μg/mL and a maximum of 10.4 μg/mL. The person with the largest variability had a minimum concentration of 9.7 μg/mL and a maximum of 28.8 μg/mL.Conclusions: There is considerable variability in the total phenytoin concentrations in the elderly nursing home resident and measurement of a single total phenytoin concentration should not be used to guide treatment.

2022 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66
Author(s):  
Vesna Žegarac Leskovar ◽  
Vanja Skalicky Klemenčič

Currently, many older people live in institutions for various social and health reasons. In Slovenia, this proportion is almost 5% of the population aged 65 and over. In the COVID-19 pandemic, the elderly proved to be the most vulnerable social group, as they are exposed to a number of comorbidities that increase the risk of mortality. At that time, nursing homes represented one of the most critical types of housing, as seen from a disproportionate number of infections and deaths among nursing home residents worldwide, including Slovenia. During the emergency, a number of safety protocols had to be followed to prevent the spread of infection. Unfortunately, it turned out that while the safety measures protected the nursing home residents, they also had a negative effect on their mental health, mainly due to isolation and social distancing. It follows that especially in times of epidemics of infectious respiratory diseases, the quality of life in nursing homes requires special attention. In this context, it is also necessary to consider whether and how an appropriate architectural design can help mitigating the spread of infections, while at the same time enable older people to live in dignity and with a minimum of social exclusion. To this end, the present study examined 97 nursing homes in Slovenia, analysing the number of infections in nursing homes and their correlation with the degree of infection in the corresponding region in Slovenia. Additionally, 2 nursing homes were studied in more detail with the use of newly developed “Safe and Connected” evaluation tool, analysing the architectural features of each building. The advantages identified so far include living in smaller units, single rooms with balconies, the possibility of using green open spaces and the use of an adequate ventilation. Conclusions of this study are useful for further consideration of design of new nursing homes and the refurbishment of existing ones.


2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith A. O'Brien ◽  
J. Jaime Caro

Objective: To estimate comparative mangement levels and the annual cost of caring for a nursing home resident with and without dementia. Method: Data from the 1995 Massachusetts Medicaid nursing home database were used to examine residents with Alzheimer's disease, other types of dementia, and no dementia to determine care and dependency levels. Massachusetts Medicaid 1997 per-diem rates for each of 10 designated management levels were applied accordingly to residents in each level to estimate annual care costs. Costs from this analysis are reported in 1997 U.S. dollars. Results: Of the 49,724 nursing home residents identified, 26.4% had a documented diagnosis of dementia. On average, a resident with dementia requires 229 more hours of care annually than one without dementia, resulting in a mean additional cost of $3,865 per patient with dementia per year. Conclusions: Dementia increases the care needs and cost of caring for a nursing home resident.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Pittman

Super-organization has been associated with worse care quality in nursing homes. Previous research on the chain ownership of American nursing homes excluded government facilities in public-private partnerships, and focused on corporate entities. This longitudinal study proposes a novel method of demarcating the latent ownership networks of for-profit, government and non-profit nursing homes in the United States through use of open data and social network analysis. Facility characteristics and care quality measures were analyzed from an ecological cohort of 9,001 American nursing homes that had a registered organization for owner, and were reimbursed through Medicare or Medicaid. Information was obtained from the Nursing Home Compare open datasets at five semi-annual processing dates from March 2016 to March 2018. Ownership networks of American nursing homes were constructed using the exact legal name of registered organizations. As hospital discharge is a routine admission source of nursing home residents, hospital referral region was actualized to demarcate focal area. Utilizing Bayesian hierarchical models, the association between nursing home super-organization in hospital referral region (inferred by degree-based centrality and Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) to scope of cited care deficiencies (denoted by Total Weighted Health Survey Score) was explored. The percentage of nursing homes having super-organization increased from 56.8 to 56.9% over the 2-year period. During this interval, the mean size of nursing home ownership group in hospital referral region increased from 3.11 to 3.23 facilities. Overall, super-organization in hospital referral region was not associated with care deficiencies in American nursing homes. However, being part of an ownership group with more facilities was beneficial for care quality among nursing homes with super-organization.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Prabhat Jha

Background: Efforts to stem the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Canada can benefit from direct understanding of the prevalence, infection fatality rates (IFRs), and information on asymptomatic infection. Methods: We surveyed a representative sample of 19,994 adult Canadians about COVID symptoms and analyzed IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 from self-collected dried blood spots (DBS) in 8,967 adults. A sensitive and specific chemiluminescence ELISA detected IgG to the spike trimer. We compared seroprevalence to deaths to establish IFRs and used mortality data to estimate infection levels in nursing home residents. Results: The best estimate (high specificity) of adult seroprevalence nationally is 1.7%, but as high as 3.5% (high sensitivity) depending on assay cut-offs. The highest prevalence was in Ontario (2.4-3.9%) and in younger adults aged 18-39 years (2.5-4.4%). Based on mortality, we estimated 13-17% of nursing home residents became infected. The first viral wave infected 0.54-1.08 million adult Canadians, half of whom were <40 years old. The IFR outside nursing homes was 0.20-0.40%, but the COVID mortality rate in nursing home residents was >70 times higher than that in comparably-aged adults living in the community. Seropositivity correlated with COVID symptoms, particularly during March. Asymptomatic adults constituted about a quarter of definite seropositives, with a greater proportion in the elderly. Interpretation: Canada had relatively low infection prevalence and low IFRs in the community, but not in nursing homes, during the first viral wave. Self-collected DBS for antibody testing is a practicable strategy to monitor the ongoing second viral wave and, eventually, vaccine-induced immunity among Canadian adults.


1990 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Bentley

Persons age 65 and over constitute the largest reservoir of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in the United States today. During 1987, 6,150 tuberculosis cases were reported among this high-risk group. These cases represent 27% of the total US tuberculosis morbidity, although this age group constitutes only 12% of the US population. Tuberculosis case rates in the United States are higher among the elderly (20.6 per 100,000) than among all other age groups (average 9.3 per 100,000).More Americans live in nursing homes than in any other type of residential institution; on any given day approximately 5% of all elderly persons are living in a nursing home. Elderly nursing home residents are at greater risk for tuberculosis than elderly persons living in the community. In a Centers for Disease Control (CDC)-sponsored survey of 15,379 routinely-reported tuberculosis cases from 29 states, 8% of the 4,919 cases that occurred among elderly persons occurred among residents of nursing homes. The incidence of tuberculosis among nursing home residents was 39.2 per 100,000 person years, whereas the incidence of tuberculosis among elderly persons living in the community was 21.5 per 100,000. The observed rate of tuberculosis among nursing home employees was three times the rate expected in employed adults of similar age, race and sex (CDC, unpublished data).


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (s1) ◽  
pp. s2-s2
Author(s):  
Sharon Mace ◽  
Daniel Caicedo ◽  
Aishwarya Sharma

Introduction:There are an estimated 15,600 nursing homes with a total of 1.4 million residents in the United States. The number of residents will continue to increase due to the aging population, and the associated morbidities will make it difficult to evacuate them safely.Aim:This study is the first of its kind to provide an analysis of the number of nursing home deaths caused by external and internal events following evacuations.Methods:Information from the databases Lexis Nexis and PubMed were compiled and limited to news articles from 1995-2017. The gathered information included the reason for evacuation, injuries, deaths, and locations within the United States.Results:From 1995 to 2017, there was a total of 51 evacuations and 141 deaths in nursing homes. 27 (53%) evacuations were due to external events which resulted in a combined 121 (86%) deaths, and 24 (47%) evacuations were due to internal events which resulted in a combined 20 (14%) deaths. Hurricanes were responsible for the majority of deaths during evacuations, followed by fires and floods. The number of evacuations and deaths increased the greatest between 2005 to 2008.Discussion:External events have the greatest impact on loss of life. Internal disasters are about equal in the number of incidents, however, external events have a much greater mortality rate. Exact numbers on injuries, morbidity, and mortality are difficult to ascertain, but it appears to be related to natural disasters. In view of the increasing likelihood of natural disasters related to global warming, a drastic improvement of standard evacuation procedures of long-term nursing homes is critical to decreasing mortality of nursing home residents. There also needs to be a nationally standardized method of reporting evacuations in order to better analyze data on nursing homes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 945-945
Author(s):  
Xiaochuan Wang ◽  
Courtney Wilson

Abstract The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been disproportionately affecting nursing homes throughout the United States, resulting elevated risk for COVID-19 morbidity and mortality to nursing home residents. Given the high percentage of aging population, large number of nursing homes, and staggering surge of COVID-19 cases in Florida, it’s critical to understand factors that may affect Florida nursing homes’ vulnerability to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Nursing Home COVID-19 Dataset as of July 26, 2020 obtained through Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and Provider Info Dataset and Health Deficiencies Dataset available through CMS Nursing Home Compare data, we constructed a database of Florida nursing facilities with confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths, with corresponding facility characteristics and quality deficiencies. We examined the facility characteristics (e.g. facility size, ownership state, chain affiliation, staffing level) and quality deficiencies (e.g. infection control deficiencies) of Florida nursing homes with and without publicly reported COVID-19 cases and deaths. Results indicated that, as of July 26, 2020, 73.3% and 40.8% of Florida nursing homes had resident COVID-19 cases and death, respectively (N=701). Findings also suggested that Florida nursing homes of large facility size, chain affiliated, and for profit, were significantly more likely to have documented resident COVID-19 cases (p&lt;.05). Larger facility size (120 beds or more), staff shortage, and having prior infection control deficiency citation, were significantly related to the odds of having resident COVID-19 deaths (p&lt;.05). Policy and practice implications and future research directions will be addressed to better protect the at-risk nursing home residents.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 632-639
Author(s):  
Lyly Nazemi ◽  
Ingmar Skoog ◽  
Ingvar Karlsson ◽  
Margda Waern ◽  
Agneta Yngve ◽  
...  

Background: Very few studies have shown the possible relationship between magnesium (Mg) status and depression. In the present study, the intracellular Mg status of the elderly population living in nursing homes (NHs) was assessed to determine its relationship with depression. Methods: A descriptive-analytical study was conducted on the elderly population living in nursing homes (Tehran-Iran; 2010-2012). Participants' demographic and clinical characteristics were collected and recorded in a checklist. Evaluating the participants’ nutritional status, Mini Nutritional Assessment Method was implemented. Determining participant's depressive symptoms, 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale was used. Final scores were classified into4 categories not depressed, mild, moderate, and severe depression. Mg level in leukocytes was also measured by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. Results: Totally 113 elderly were included and only 9.8% of subjects were not depressed. About 21% of the subjects were well nourished. Of participants who suffered from heart disease, 80.2% were depressed (p=0.03). Regarding correlations between Mg status and depression, results showed no significant difference in Mg levels of two depressed and non-depressed participants (p=0.73). Conclusion: The results of the present study showed notable prevalence rates of depression and malnutrition among nursing home residents. It was also found that the relationship between intracellular Mg levels and depression was not significant. Further studies are needed to determine the major factors related to these preventable psychological and nutritional disorders among elderly NH residents.


2016 ◽  
Vol 126 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-36
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Kamińska-Pikiewicz ◽  
Teresa Bachanek ◽  
Renata Chałas

Abstract Introduction. Age-related tooth loss causes an increasing need for prosthetic treatment. Maintaining a healthy masticatory system, as well as proper speaking functions is one of the main goals for prosthetic rehabilitation of the elderly. Aim. The authors aimed at checking what types of moveable dentures people over 65, residents of nursing and family homes tend to wear and how long do they do it. Material and methods. Some 240 people over 65 were looked at - 117 were residents of nursing homes in Lublin, while another 123 lived in their own family home. The authors took the following factors into consideration: type of denture, and how long were the dentures used. Results. It appeared that movable dentures were used by some 57.26% of nursing home residents and 69.11% of people living in their family homes. Residents used mostly full denture, both in maxilla and mandible, respectively 71.05% and 67.14%. Similarly, seniors living at home had worn mainly full maxillary denture in 50.00% of cases, and full mandibular denture in 44.44% of cases. The mean time of using maxillary and mandibular dentures was longer in seniors residing in nursing homes (maxilla - 7.24 years, mandible - 7.48 years) than in persons living with their families (maxilla - 5.39 years, mandible - 4.63 years). Conclusion. The supply of dentures in both groups of seniors is unsatisfactory. Most of the examined seniors have used the dental prostheses for too long.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1420326X2096772
Author(s):  
Emine Tarakci Eren ◽  
Tuğba Düzenli ◽  
Mustafa Var

The present study presents a three-step methodology to determine the environmental satisfaction levels of the elderly individuals in nursing home gardens. The first step comprised the selection of seven nursing homes in five provinces in the Eastern Black Sea region in Turkey. In the second step, 130 participants were selected among the residents of these seven nursing homes via random sampling. In the third step, the satisfaction level of the nursing home residents with the institution gardens was determined. A correlation analysis showed a positive relationship between the environmental and individual characteristics ( r =  0.554; p < 0.01). Simple regression analysis was conducted to determine the effect of environmental characteristics on the satisfaction of individual needs, after determining the direction and level of the relationship between the environmental and the individual characteristics via correlation analysis. The analysis indicated a significant relationship between the environmental and individual characteristics ( R = 0.610; R2 = 0.373; F = 75.991; p <0.001). In conclusion, increased level of satisfaction with the existing physical characteristics of the gardens resulted in an increased level in meeting the psychosocial needs of the elderly individuals, thus, the environmental satisfaction level of nursing home residents increased as well.


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