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- GeroNurseOnline.org Creates Online Tutorial Feature
- Evercare Donates $100,000 to Fund Scholarships at the John A. Hartford Foundation Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence
- Free DVD Helps Health Care Providers Spread Hope to Seniors with Macular Degeneration Disease
- Clinic Study Finds Weight Loss Precedes Dementia Diagnosis in Women
- Many Men Older Than 75 Years Undergo PSA Testing
GeroNurseOnline.org Creates Online Tutorial Feature
GeroNurseOnline.org, an online resource that provides best practices in the care of older adults by geriatric syndromes, their possible causes, and treatments, has created an online tutorial feature to help users maximize their use of the site. The tutorial guides visitors through the resources available, which include 27 geriatric topics, assessment tools, continuing education opportunities, and geriatric resources by specialty practice areas. The tutorial is accessible on the home page at www.GeroNurseOnline.org.
GeroNurseOnline.org is the official Web site of Nurse Competence in Aging, a 5-year initiative funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies (USA) Inc. and awarded to the American Nurses Association through the American Nurses Foundation. It represents a strategic alliance between the American Nurses Association, the American Nurses Credentialing Center, and the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing at New York University College of Nursing.
Evercare Donates $100,000 to Fund Scholarships at the John A. Hartford Foundation Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence
Evercare, a division of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), recently announced that the company will donate $100,000 to fund scholarships for graduate nursing students at the John A. Hartford Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence, which are located at 5 top-tier universities across the country. The Evercare Scholars program will support the development of leaders in long-term care who will advance the nursing profession, shape public policy, and improve the care and well-being of frail older adults. The grants will be awarded during the 2006–2007 academic year.
About the Evercare Scholars Program
Each $20,000 scholarship will be awarded to a graduate nursing student who is studying ways to improve health care delivered in long-term care settings. The scholarship recipients will receive tuition assistance and will be brought together during the course of their scholarship year to share their experiences, knowledge, and research.
Each of the five Hartford Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence, which were established in 2000 as part of the Hartford Geriatric Nursing Initiative, will select an Evercare scholar. The Centers, which will administer the scholarship review and award process, are
Free DVD Helps Health Care Providers Spread Hope to Seniors with Macular Degeneration Disease
A new DVD highlights the many ways in which senior citizens can live independent, fulfilling lives while coping with an incurable eye disease known as macular degeneration. Titled “Hope & Cope: Living with Macular Degeneration,” the DVD is available FREE of charge to those who serve and work with senior citizens, including health care providers, retirement home managers, nursing home and assisted living administrators, and social service directors. Public libraries may also request a free copy of the DVD. To order, go to www.vpw.com/programs.
Clinic Study Finds Weight Loss Precedes Dementia Diagnosis in Women
Mayo Clinic researchers have found that women who develop dementia experience a decline in weight as many as 10 years before the onset of memory loss, compared with peers who do not develop dementia. Findings will be presented July 16, 2006 at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders in Madrid, Spain.
“We discovered that the weight of those women who developed dementia was drifting downward many years before the onset of symptoms,” says David Knopman, MD, Mayo Clinic neurologist and lead study researcher. “This illustrates changes that occur before the memory loss and mental decline in dementia. We believe that the brain disease began to interfere somehow with maintenance of body weight, long before it affected memory and thinking.”
Dr. Knopman and colleagues conducted this retrospective study, analyzing the medical records of people seen by a medical provider in Olmsted County, home of Mayo Clinic, who were diagnosed with the onset of dementia between 1990 and 1994. They identified 560 patients and, for comparison, also identified a group of those similar in age and gender who did not develop dementia. For each patient, weight was identified for the year of dementia diagnosis and then for the 20 to 30 years preceding. The weights of those patients who didn’t develop dementia were tracked over the same period.
“In those women who did not go on to develop dementia, 30 years before the year of their peers’ onset of dementia, their average weight was 140 pounds,” says Dr. Knopman. “At the year of their peers’ dementia onset, they weighed 142 pounds. The women who later developed dementia started off at the same weight as those who didn’t develop dementia, but then their weight drifted downward to 136 pounds 10 years before symptom onset and 128 pounds at symptom onset.”
The cause of the weight loss in those women who later developed dementia is unclear, according to Dr. Knopman, but the investigators have some theories.
“The weight loss findings raise scientific questions about the cause or causes of the weight loss,” says Dr. Knopman. “This points to changes in the brain that develop years before the actual memory loss. We think that there are several possible explanations. The women might have less initiative and lose interest in eating, they might develop a duller sense of taste and smell, or they might experience an earlier sense of satiety (feeling full). Also, because we didn’t observe the anticipatory weight loss in men, the weight loss could have something specific to do with postmenopausal hormonal changes.”
Dr. Knopman explains that he does not consider the weight loss finding to be useful for diagnosis of dementia, and he does not envision that physicians who discover weight loss in their female patients later in life would immediately send the patient for memory testing. He hopes, however, that dementia researchers can pinpoint the brain mechanisms influencing the weight loss in women who develop dementia in order to better understand how it develops.
Dementia is a neurological disorder affecting a person’s ability to think, speak, reason, remember and move. The most common forms of dementia are Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and Lewy body dementia.
Source: www.mayoclinic.org/news2006-rst/3531.html.
Many Men Older Than 75 Years Undergo PSA Testing
Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening is recommended for men up to an age when their life expectancy drops below 10 years. As such, it is generally uncommon to use PSA screening in men over age 75 because the average American man lives to age 76. How often older men get PSA testing is not well reported.
In the August 2006 issue of the Journal of Urology, Dr. Scales and associates at Duke University report that 14% of all PSA tests are performed in man older than 75 years.
Data for the analysis was acquired between 1999 and 2002 from the National Center for Health Statistics probability survey. Almost all medical specialties are represented and a total of 101,148 records from 5,197 physicians are included for years 1999–2002. The data are used to estimate the use of ambulatory care services in the United States. The database obtains probability samples from geographic primary sampling, physician practices in each unit, and visits in each physician practice.
A total of 14,554 visits to primary care physicians (nonurologists) and urologists were analyzed. The average patient age was 62 years, 18% were by men older than 75 years, and 60% were by men aged 50–75 years. There were 41.8 million PSA tests represented, and 74% were performed in men aged 50–75 years, 12% were performed in men aged 40–49 years, and 14% were performed in men older than 75 years.
The population-based PSA testing rates per age group were 6%, 26%, and 28% for age groups 40–49, 50–75, and greater than 75 years. In 2002, the population-based screening rate in men greater than 75 years was 34%.
The majority of PSA tests (76%) were performed by nonurologists with urologists performing 24%. In men greater than age 75 years, nonurologists and urologists performed 70% and 30% of PSA tests, respectively.
A laboratory facility on site was associated with a higher likelihood of PSA testing (odds ratio 1.36), but physician employment status (owner vs. employee) was not. Race was not associated with PSA testing in older men. What is unknown is whether tests were performed for PSA screening or monitoring for treated prostate cancer or Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia.
Source: J Urol 2006;176:511-14.
PII: S0197-4572(06)00297-7
doi:10.1016/j.gerinurse.2006.10.008