Introduction The Norman Power Centre (NPC) is an Intermediate Care Unit, in Birmingham, UK, providing enhanced assessment beds (EAB) where patients undergo functional assessment after an acute admission. There is little published data regarding the outcomes for patients admitted to EAB, so we set out to analyse outcomes in our unit. Method Data was collected from 50 patients who were discharged from EAB between September 2021 and March 2022. Results The mean length of stay was 36 days, median was 29 days. Of the 50 patients: 4 went home with no services, 9 went home with Early Intervention
Introduction The Norman Power Centre (NPC) is a 32 bedded Intermediate Care Unit, run by an acute hospital trust in Birmingham, UK, for patients who require ongoing 24 hour care, rehabilitation or further assessment, but do not need to be in an acute hospital setting. These frail patients attend numerous outpatient hospital appointments, but rarely do staff receive communication back from these outpatient reviews. This can lead to delays in implementing specialist management plans, with potential for adverse outcomes for patients and increased staff workload in seeking out the required
Introduction: Procollagen-N-terminal-peptide(P1NP) is a bone formation marker. Bisphosphonates lead to a reduction in P1NP levels and levels are significantly elevated shortly after fracture. In older patients taking bisphosphonates who have had a further osteoporotic fracture there is a lack of evidence to guide ongoing osteoporotic management. Objectives: To assess if measuring P1NP in patients receiving Bisphosphonates treatment who develop neck of femur fractures helps guide further management in regards to long term bone protection treatment. Methodology: Retrospective descriptive cohort
Introduction Treatment burden is the workload of healthcare and its impact on patient well-being and functioning. High treatment burden in other long-term conditions is associated with poor health outcomes. This study aimed to determine the extent and levels of treatment burden among people with Parkinson’s (PwP) and their caregivers, and explore modifiable factors. Methods A cross-sectional survey using the Multimorbidity Treatment Burden Questionnaire (MTBQ) to measure treatment burden was conducted among adults (age >18 years) diagnosed with Parkinson’s or self-identified caregivers of
Introduction Patients with frailty who have emergency admissions are at risk of mortality and may benefit from Anticipatory Care Planning (ACP). Appropriate identification, to target limited resource in an in-patient environment can be challenging. We conducted a prospective study on a cohort of frail in-patients with a hospital admission of ≥ 72 hours duration. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the SPICT tool alongside Clinical Frailty Score (CFS) as a predictor of mortality to improve our targeting of patients for ACP. Method. On a single day a SPICT form was completed prospectively
Introduction Important parts of the comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) include medication review and assessment of bone health. Such aspects of CGA can be missed in clinical practice in the busy acute hospital setting. We aimed to improve performance of medication review, and assessment of bone health in patients with falls in the form of vitamin D levels and Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX) scoring, in admissions to the acute Care of the Elderly (COTE) team in a district general hospital in South Wales. Methodology Data were collected from documentation of the initial review of
Background: In response to the COVID pandemic when new robust discharge criteria were introduced to facilitate early discharge to optimise hospital capacity, Post Discharge Frailty Support (PDFS) was established. PDFS provides nurse-led telephone follow-up for patients discharged primarily from the Emergency Department (ED) and the Acute Frailty Assessment Unit (AFAU). Objectives: We aim to provide continuity of care by following up frail elderly patients at home, reviewing their medical, functional and social progress post discharge and ensuring they received adequate support to avoid
Introduction It is well recognised that patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have significant symptom burden in advanced stages of their disease. Integration of movement disorder and palliative care services has been limited by concerns about resource and sustainability. We present our experience of establishing a movement disorders palliative care multidisciplinary meeting. Method In 2019 we established a multidisciplinary virtual bimonthly meeting between movement disorders and palliative care specialists. Referrals were accepted from movement disorder specialists, community Parkinson’s
Introduction: A large proportion of Morriston Hospital’s acute medical take consists of elderly patients admitted with falls. Postural hypotension is a cause of syncope and fall which contributes to morbidity, disability and death in cases of injury in the frail and elderly population 1. Hence, diagnosing and treating postural hypotension is crucial. It is important that the measurement of lying-standing blood pressure (LSBP) is consistent to ensure reliability of results as this would affect patients’ management. The aim of this project is to assess how postural hypotension is diagnosed in
The Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment (ReSPECT) form is widely adopted to document advanced care plans, including Do Not Attempt Resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions. Communication between clinicians and patients, or next of kin is required for completion. It is widely documented UK medical students have little exposure to these experiences, including being asked to leave whilst they are occurring. During the COVID19 pandemic, Foundation Year 1 (FY1) doctors led discussions with increased frequency and autonomy, with no documented concurrent training. We present a novel
Background : Three challenges for ageing populations are frailty (a state of reduced physiological reserve), social isolation (objective lack of social connections), and loneliness (subjective experience of feeling alone). These are associated with adverse outcomes. This study aims to examine how frailty in combination with loneliness or social isolation is associated with all-cause mortality and hospitalisation rate using data from UK Biobank, a large population-based research cohort. Methods: 502,456 UK Biobank participants were recruited 2006-2010. Baseline data assessed frailty (via two
Introduction: Frailty is a long term condition with potentially significant associated healthcare costs and resource usage. The gold standard evidence based intervention is a comprehensive geriatric assessment. The NHS Long Term Plan highlights the importance of ageing well and developing proactive services in the community. Care home residents often have unmet health and social care needs, and are frequently frail. Methods: 59 patients with severe or very severe frailty (Rockwood clinical frailty score 7 or 8) across three care homes with both residential and nursing provision were reviewed
Introduction Vertebral fragility fractures (VFF) are the most common osteoporotic fracture. VFF can result in significant pain requiring hospitalisation. However, there is little data on patient numbers, hospital bed days and costs, contributed to by these patients. Methodology We report a retrospective analysis of patients aged 55 years and over admitted to hospitals across England from 2017-2019. ICD-10 classifications for VFF and OPCS codes were used to identify admissions and patients who had undergone vertebral augmentation (VA). Results There were a total of 99,240 patients (61% Female)
Title: Care of Older People undergoing emergency surgery: meeting the standards of the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit (NELA) Introduction: There are well documented in-equalities for outcomes for surgical intervention 1,2,3 associated with Age and Frailty including emergency laparotomy 4. NELA data has shown over half of such patients are over 65 years old about one fifth are over 80. These patients having significantly higher mortality, longer hospital stays and it has also shown frailty to be an independent marker of poor outcomes. Through application of key standards these outcomes
Introduction: Many commonly prescribed medications have inadvertent anticholinergic effects. People living with Dementia (PLWD) are vulnerable to these effects and at risk of adverse outcomes, the risk being higher with greater anticholinergic exposure. We investigated prescribing patterns and anticholinergic burden (ACB) in a cohort of community-dwelling PLWD and explored the effect of ACB on cognition, neuropsychiatric symptoms, quality of life (QoL), and functional independence. Method: The medication and demographic information for 87 (39 female) community-dwelling PLWD were obtained from
Introduction: Older people in care homes with atrial fibrillation (AF) have complex health needs and would benefit from taking part in research. This study assessed the feasibility of pharmacist implementation of the Atrial Fibrillation Better Care (ABC: Anticoagulation; Better symptoms; Cardiovascular comorbidity management) pathway, and collection of an AF-specific, resident-centred outcome. Methods: Older residents (aged ≥65 years) with AF were recruited from care homes within Liverpool and Sefton and randomised to receive the pharmacist intervention, or continue their existing treatment
Introduction: The pandemic has shown how vital patient-centred treatment escalation planning (TEP) is for older people. Locally we have seen inappropriate transfer of dying patients to acute hospitals from rehabilitation units. Mortality review found a lack of useful TEPs in these cases. Baseline data in our rehabilitation hospital showed 54% of patients had a TEP and 16% a decision made about repatriation during acute illness. We aimed to increase the proportion of patients in this setting with a TEP to 80% over six months. Methods: A multidisciplinary team of doctors, ANPs and senior nurses
The National Mortality Case Record Review Programme commissioned in 2016 aimed to improve the learning from deaths process. As part of this aim, several reports were published, which identified barriers in implementing the mortality review process. Mortality and Morbidity (M&M) meetings can be an important mechanism for removing these barriers, and while have been in place for a long time in surgical specialties, are only recently becoming more common in medical specialties. We have developed an innovative M&M meeting in our geriatric department to integrate Mortality case reviews with
Objective: Frailty patients undergoing emergency laparotomy (EmLap) experienced increased perioperative morbidity and mortality. We aim to explore the association between frailty scoring in EmLap older adults (>65 years) and 1-year post-operative morbidity and social care changes. Methods: Retrospective analysis was performed on the Emergency Laparotomy and Laparoscopic Scottish Audit (ELLSA) database (2018-2019). Older adults with completed preoperative scoring markers (National Emergency Laparotomy Audit (NELA) and Rockwood Frailty Score (RFS)) were included. ‘Frail’ was defined as RFS>3 and
Introduction By 2030, it is estimated that 25% of Europeans will be aged over 65.[Dugarova;UNDevelopmentProgramme;2017] Frailty in this group is a key contributor to poorer outcomes.[Eamer;BMCAnesthesiology;2017;17:99] The term is common in healthcare but research into the issues faced by staff around assessment and management of frailty has been limited. We undertook a survey to identify challenges faced in providing care to those living with frailty and considered potential interventions. Method The survey was across three hospitals in our health board (which serves a population of around