Ashfield Community Hospital

BACKGROUND: The endurance shuttle walking test (ESWT) has shown good responsiveness to interventions in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, the minimal important difference (MID) for this test remains unknown, therefore limiting its interpretability. METHODS: Patients with COPD who completed two or more ESWTs following pulmonary rehabilitation (n=132; forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) 48 ± 22%) or bronchodilation (n=69; FEV1 50 ± 12%) rated their performance of the day in comparison with their previous performance on a 7-point scale ranging from -3 (large deterioration) to +3 (large improvement). The relationship between subjective perception of changes and objective changes in performance during the shuttle walk was evaluated. RESULTS: Following pulmonary rehabilitation, the anchor-based approach did not allow a valid estimation of the MID in the ESWT performance to be obtained. After bronchodilation, patient ratings of change correlated significantly with the difference in walking distance (r=0.53, p<0.001) and endurance time (r=0.55, p<0.001). For the pharmacotherapy data, regression analysis indicated that a 65 s (95% CI 45 to 85) change in endurance time and a 95 m (95% CI 60 to 115) change in walking distance were associated with a 1-point change in the rating of change scale. These changes represented 13-15% of the baseline values. CONCLUSIONS: A change in endurance shuttle walking performance of 45-85 s (or 60-115 m) after bronchodilation is likely to be perceived by patients. This MID value may be specific to the intervention from which it was derived.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether a change in practice to introduce a multidisciplinary fall-prevention program can reduce falls and injury in nonacute patients in a rehabilitation hospital. DESIGN: A quasi-experimental study. SETTING: Three geriatric wards with a similar design, equipment, staffing levels, and skill mix. PARTICIPANTS: Eight hundred twenty-five consecutive patients. INTERVENTION: The patients' fall-risk status was assessed using the Downton Score. Current practice was maintained on the two control wards (n=550). On the experimental ward (n=275), a fall-prevention program was introduced. A multidisciplinary team met weekly specifically to discuss patients' fall risk and formulate a targeted plan. Patients at risk were identified using wristbands; risk factors were corrected or environmental changes made to enhance safety. MEASUREMENTS: Primary outcomes were number of fallers, recurrent fallers, total falls, patients sustaining injury, and falls per occupied bed days. Secondary outcomes were place of discharge and mortality. RESULTS: Patients were matched for age and risk status. Control wards had proportionally more fallers (20.2% vs 14.2%: P=.033), patients sustaining injury (8.2% vs 4%: P=.025), and total number of falls (170 vs 72: P=.045). These results did not remain significant after controlling for differing length of stay. There was no reduction in recurrent fallers (6.4% vs 4.7%: P=.43) and no effect on place of discharge (home discharges; 57.5% vs 60.7%: P=.41) or mortality (15.3% vs 13.8%: P=.60). CONCLUSION: This study shows that falls might be reduced in a multidisciplinary fall-prevention program, but the results are not definitive because of the borderline significance achieved and the variable length of stay. More research on fall prevention in hospital is required, particularly as to what interventions, if any, are effective at reducing falls in this group of patients.

BACKGROUND: Identifying patients who need Nursing Home (NH) care following a hospital admission is important. OBJECTIVE: To identify the factors that predispose to an NH discharge. DESIGN: Prospective observational study with blinded end-point evaluation. SETTING: A non-acute geriatric hospital. SUBJECTS: Two hundred consecutive elderly patients who were admitted for rehabilitation following treatment for an acute illness. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Discharge to an NH or home. RESULTS: Thirty-five out of the 150 live discharges (23.3%) were to an NH. NH discharges had a longer length of stay (38.5 versus 19.8 days; p < 0001). They were more likely to have visual impairment (p = 0.0009), confusion (p < 0.0001), wandering behaviour (p = 0.003), incontinence (p < 0.0001 or unsafe gait (p = 0.0005), to be on tranquillizers (p = 0.003), to be at risk of falls (p = 0.02) and to have sustained a fall while in hospital (p = 0.001). Multiple logistic regression identified confusion (p = 0.001), incontinence (p = 0.02), falls in hospital (p = 0.01), gait abnormalities (p < 0.001), tranquillizers (p < 0.001), impaired distant vision (p = 0.01) and living alone (p < 0.001) as independently associated with the risk of an NH discharge. This risk proportionately increased with the number of risk factors present: 4.28% for 0-2 factors, 25.8% for 3-4 factors and 81.8% for 5-6 factors (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: These factors should be the target of specific rehabilitation in an attempt to reduce the risk of discharge to a nursing home and improve patient outcome.

BACKGROUND: Musculoskeletal knee pain is a large and costly problem, and meniscal tears make up a large proportion of diagnoses. ‘Special tests’ to diagnose torn menisci are often used in the physical examination of the knee joint. A large number of publications within the literature have investigated the diagnostic accuracy of these tests, yet despite the wealth of research their diagnostic accuracy remains unclear.Aim To synthesise the most current literature on the diagnostic accuracy of special tests for meniscal tears of the knee in adults. METHOD: An electronic search of MEDLINE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allies Health Literature (CINAHL), The Allied and Complementary Medicine Database (AMED) and SPORT Discus databases was carried out from inception to December 2014. Two authors independently selected studies and independently extracted data. Methodological quality was evaluated using the Quality Assessment Tool for Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS) 2 tool. RESULTS: Nine studies were included (n=1234) and three special tests were included in the meta-analysis. The methodological quality of the included studies was generally poor. McMurray’s had a sensitivity of 61% (95% CI 45% to 74%) and a specificity of 84% (95% CI 69%to 92%). Joint line tenderness had a sensitivity of 83%(95% CI 73% to 90%) and a specificity of 83% (95% CI 61% to 94%). Thessaly 20° had a sensitivity of 75%(95% CI 53% to 89%) and a specificity of 87% (95% CI 65% to 96%). CONCLUSIONS: The accuracy of the special tests to diagnose meniscal tears remains poor. However, these results should be used with caution, due to the poor quality and low numbers of included studies and high levels of heterogeneity.

BACKGROUND: Dyspepsia guidelines recommend that patients treated with proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) should step down to the lowest effective dose or return to self-care, but rebound hyperacidity can make this difficult. Many patients continue on PPIs in the long term, which may lead to safety and financial implications. AIM: To determine if a nurse-led educational support programme and rescue therapy for rebound symptoms can help patients achieve a sustained reduction in PPI use. DESIGN & SETTING: A prospective interventional study was conducted at 26 surgeries across the UK. METHOD: Adult patients, treated with PPIs for ≥2 consecutive months with an active repeat prescription, were invited to a 20-minute dyspepsia clinic appointment with a trained nurse adviser. An action plan to reduce and/or stop their PPI usage was agreed and alginate supplied for the self-management of rebound symptoms. After 12 months, PPI status was reviewed and prescribing cost savings calculated. RESULTS: After 12 months, 75.1% of 6249 eligible patients stepped down or off PPIs (35.3% stepped off; 5.0% stepped down then off; 34.8% stepped down only), while 8.7% of patients had reverted to their original PPI dose. PPI prescriptions fell from 89 915 to 45 880 and alginate prescriptions increased from 2405 to 6670. An average of 1.7 bottles (500 ml each) of alginate were used per patient who stepped down or off. Estimated annual cost-saving on prescriptions was £31 716.30. CONCLUSION: A programme of education and short-term rebound symptom management helped the majority of patients to successfully step down or off PPIs, significantly reducing the potential risks associated with chronic therapy.

Care provided by specialist nurses has been shown to improve outcomes for patients with chronic heart failure (CHF), significantly reducing the number of unplanned readmissions, length of hospital stay, hospital costs, and mortality. Most patients develop CHF as a result of coronary artery disease. Once cardiac damage has occurred, the risk of developing heart failure can be reduced by providing appropriate treatment at appropriate dosages. While cardiac rehabilitation clinics provide an opportunity to check drug usage, their prime focus is on optimising patients' physical well being following a heart attack. In addition, evidence suggests that general practitioners are frequently reluctant to initiate appropriate treatments and to up-titrate drug dosages even for patients with diagnosed heart failure. Therefore, to ensure that these patients are not left on starting doses of medications many hospitals are now setting up nurse led post-myocardial infarction (MI) clinics. The Omada programme is a secondary care based, nurse led model of care set up in 1999 to improve the management of CHF by providing appropriate patient education within a nurse led clinic setting, optimising evidence based medication and fostering partnership between health professionals in both primary and secondary care. The model of care is highly applicable to the post-MI setting, where it can ensure that patients receive better care at an earlier stage.

BACKGROUND: Core podiatry involves treatment of the nails, corns and callus and also giving footwear and foot health advice. Though it is an integral part of current podiatric practice little evidence is available to support its efficacy in terms of research and audit data. This information is important in order to support the current NHS commissioning process where services are expected to provide data on standards including outcomes. This study aimed to increase the evidence base for this area of practice by conducting a multi-centre audit in 8 NHS podiatry departments over a 1-year period. METHODS: The outcome measure used in this audit was the Podiatry Health Questionnaire which is a self completed short measure of foot health including a pain visual analogue scale and a section for the podiatrist to rate an individual's foot health based on their podiatric problems. The patient questionnaire was completed by individuals prior to receiving podiatry care and then 2 weeks after treatment to assess the effect of core podiatry in terms of pain and foot health. RESULTS: 1047 patients completed both questionnaires, with an age range from 26-95 years and a mean age of 72.9 years. The podiatrists clinical rating at baseline showed 75% of patients had either slight or moderate podiatric problems. The differences in questionnaire and visual analogue scores before and after treatment were determined according to three categories - better, same, worse and 75% of patients' scores either remained the same or improved after core podiatry treatment. A student t-test showed a statistical significant difference in pre and post treatment scores where P < 0.001, though the confidence interval indicated that the improvement was relatively small. CONCLUSION: Core podiatry has been shown to sustain or improve foot health and pain in 75% of the patients taking part in the audit. Simple outcome measures including pain scales should be used routinely in podiatric practice to assess the affect of different aspects of treatments and improve the evidence base for podiatry.

UK guidelines for domiciliary oxygen have suggested the six-minute walk test or shuttle walk tests as suitable functional measures for the clinical assessment of ambulatory oxygen (AO). To date, there is limited evidence that would support the use of shuttle walk tests as assessment tools for AO. The endurance shuttle walk test (ESWT) is used increasingly as an assessment tool within pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) but its potential as an investigative test for AO has not been explored. Using the same test for both PR and AO assessment is appealing since it would improve efficiency and act to standardise outcome measures in this patient population. The aim of this study was to examine the responsiveness and repeatability of the ESWT to AO and to compare the response with that of the six-minute walk test (6MWT). Twenty-three patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) performed, in random order, the ESWT and the 6MWT on air and whilst breathing AO. Oxygen saturation and Borg ratings of breathlessness and perceived exertion were recorded. On a third day, eleven patients repeated the ESWT with AO in order to measure repeatability. There was a significantly greater change in the ESWT with oxygen than the change recorded from the 6MWT (66 [91] vs 6 [28] m respectively; P < .05). When repeated on a separate day, the mean difference (95% CI) between distances walked on the ESWT with AO was 0.91 (-47, 49) m. The ESWT was more responsive than the 6MWT for detecting improvements in walking endurance whilst breathing AO.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the experience of rheumatoid arthritis patients receiving anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) therapy on physical, psychological and social well-being. METHOD: Seven patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who received six months of infliximab were interviewed in depth by one researcher to identify their experiences of this treatment. The interviews were tape-recorded and analysed using Colaizzi's procedural steps. RESULTS: Four main categories were identified from the interview relating to the patient's experience of anti-TNF therapy. These included: The impact of living with RA on physical, psychological and social function. The influence of anti-TNF therapy on physical, psychological and social function. The experience of attending for treatment. The impact of discontinuing anti-TNF treatment. CONCLUSION: All seven patients experienced benefits from receiving anti-TNF therapy. These benefits were not maintained once the treatment period was completed.

This paper, based on a presentation given at the University of Leeds, proposes a novel way of introducing students to Special Relativity. The main thrust is to start from what the students know and lead them to question their current world view, which is generally Newtonian and constructed within a framework based on the absolute nature of space and time. It must, however, be stressed that what is presented here is no more than an analogy for relativity and as such it does have limitations.

A belief held by many professional healthcare workers is that older people have few views on the quality of care they receive and, to a large extent, are unable to comment on issues or make decisions for themselves ( Brooker and Dinshaw 1998 ). As the movement towards patient-centred care advances rapidly in clinical practice, nurses must become more responsive to older people's needs ( Wallace et al 1999 , McClymont 1999 ). But becoming responsive requires patients' and carers' involvement in decisions affecting their care ( Wallace et al 1999 ). Only a real understanding of their views will facilitate nurses in providing truly patient-centred care(Ainsworth and Killingworth 1995 ).

Rationale: The endurance shuttle walk has recently been shown to be highly responsive to both bronchodilation and pulmonary rehabilitation. The degree to which changes in endurance shuttle walking performance are perceptible to patients is unknown. &#x0D; &#x0D; Objective: To evaluate the relationship between objective and subjective measures of change in endurance shuttle walking performance. &#x0D; &#x0D; Methods: 129 comparison points were obtained from 69 patients with COPD (FEV1: 47±16%) who completed two or more endurance shuttle walking tests as part of a bronchodilation study. Patients were asked to rate their performance of the day in comparison to their previous performance on a 7&amp;S209; point scale ranging from -3 (large deterioration) to +3 (large improvement). These ratings were related to changes in walking distance and endurance time, expressed both as delta and percent change. &#x0D; &#x0D; Results: Patient ratings of change were significantly correlated with delta walking distance (r=0.44, P &lt; 0.001), delta endurance time (r=0.46, P &lt; 0.001), percent change in walking distance (r=0.54, P &lt; 0.001), and percent change in endurance time (r=0.55, P &lt; 0.001). Deteriorations in walking performance were perceived in 34% of cases, while improvements were detected in 81% of cases.&#x0D; &#x0D; Conclusion: Changes in endurance shuttle walking performance, especially improvements, are well perceived by patients with COPD. From this set of data, it should be possible to identify the smallest change in walking performance with a high likelihood of being perceived by the patients (MCID).

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to evaluate the cost utility of one year's treatment with a low-dose conjugated estrogen/medroxyprogesterone acetate (CE/MPA low dose) preparation (Premique Low Dose [Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Maidenhead, UK]), compared with a higher-dose preparation (Premique; CE/MPA [Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Maidenhead, UK]), in postmenopausal women with an intact uterus. The evaluation captured the resource implications associated with the difference in treatment discontinuation and adverse event driven consultations in patients receiving either the low- or higher-dose preparation. This economic evaluation was conducted from the perspective of the NHS. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A health economic model was developed to calculate the incremental cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained from treatment with a lower-dose CE/MPA combination, compared with a higher-dose CE/MPA preparation. Cohorts of 100 patients were assumed to receive either CE/MPA low dose or CE/MPA for one year. A probabilistic sensitivity analysis was used to explore whether the base case model was robust to the assumptions employed. Neither costs nor consequences were discounted because of the one year timeframe. RESULTS: In the base case, CE/MPA low dose dominates, i.e. it showed a greater health gain at a reduced cost, in both mild and severe symptom populations. These results were repeated in the sensitivity analysis, with the cost-effectiveness planes for both mild and severe symptom populations showing a greater utility at a reduced cost. CONCLUSIONS: CE/MPA low dose has been demonstrated to be a cost-effective treatment of estrogen-deficiency symptoms in postmenopausal women with an intact uterus. It has great potential for increasing the number of patients benefiting from relief of menopausal symptoms while also reducing the resource utilisation associated with managing the adverse effects associated with higher-dose HRT.

Debra Dudley and Alan Pringle explain how an innovative approach to dementia care helped student nurses discover more about older people’s lives

As part of its 1999/2000 strategy, the Mental Health and Older People Forum conducted a small-scale survey to highlight key issues for older people with mental health difficulties and the nurses who care for them. The survey was distributed to those attending the RCN European Conference in November and to volunteers who responded to a request for help in the forum’s newsletter Ageing Matters. The results are still being analysed, but key themes are emerging:

Antibiotic resistance is an increasing phenomenon as of today due to factors like access to over-the-counter drugs, over-use in agriculture, lack of medical training and lack of public awareness. A factor that has accelerated this is Covid-19. The modern solutions to antibiotic resistance are education of the public through health campaigns, schools and discussions with doctors, bacteriophage therapy, stronger regulations on pharmaceutical promotion and increasing data and surveillance of antibiotic resistance in order to maintain direct, efficent policies.

Background Research in clinical practice without attachment to a major academic institution can be fraught with difficulties. This article aims to explore some of the difficulties that can be encountered when carrying out research, using the example of a project aiming to use clinical practice to develop more relevant and realistic multidisciplinary outcome measures for the rehabilitation population. In this example, with patient and staff involvement, the reliability study successfully developed the Care Dependency Scale into such a tool. Contents This article does not present the results of the research, which will be presented separately; rather it describes the story of the research project, outlining both the challenges and benefits that transpired as a consequence of staff being involved in research in a small multidisciplinary rehabilitation centre. Conclusions While such research can present many challenges, endeavouring to overcome these can have positive outcomes for both staff and patients. In this case, participating in research proved to be a tool to empower both staff and patients and promoted changes in the Centre. Potential researchers should not be put off their investigations simply because they are not affiliated with an academic institution.

The June 2023 neh Institute—“Preserving and Transmitting American Ensemble-Based Theatre”—aimed to understand the work of the many ensembles who have made work within the United States. Each ensemble has a unique story but the Romanian phrase that an ensemble has “the life of a dog” struck a nerve, positing that ensembles come and go. Maybe so, but this essay suggests that though their candle may burn out, the light they produce lives on. In an era of tremendous uncertainty and extremes of teenage sadness, ensemble theatre as a practice can, and has, galvanized a new generation to take control of the narrative and to make work that speaks directly to the current moment. As seductive as the story is of artists emerging out of necessity during particularly tumultuous times, it helps the next generation know that their work will leave a mark and that meaning within performance is how culture is created.

Over the last year the RCN national forum Co-ordinating Committee has been considering how to improve the RCN’s services to both its active members and the wider RCN membership. These proposals will have an impact on the role and function of both older people’s nursing forums. Andrea Ward elaborates

Abstract The general solution of the r th inhomogeneous linear difference equation is given in the form The coefficients , i = 2, …, r , and b ( n − r ) ( n ) can be evaluated from n values , k = 0, …, n − 1, which santisfy an r th order homogenous linear difference equation. In the r th order homogeneous case and if n ≥ 2 r , the method requires the evaluation of r determinants of successive orders n − 2 r + 1, n − 2 r + 2, …, n − r . If r ≤ n ≤ 2 r − 1, only n − r determinants are required, with orders varying from 1 to n − r . In the second order ihnomogenous case, can be evaluated from a continued fraction amd a simple product.