BACKGROUND The objective of the study is to evaluate the use of Siebens Domain Management Model (SDMM) in geriatric-stroke patients during inpatient rehabilitation (IR) to increase functional independence, and to reduce institutionalization and acute-care readmissions, which are quality indicators under the U.S. Affordable Care Act. METHODS In 2010 (preintervention), 66 stroke patients aged m...

BACKGROUND Frailty is common in older age, and is associated with important adverse health outcomes including increased risk of disability and admission to hospital or long-term care. Exercise interventions for frail older people have the potential to reduce the risk of these adverse outcomes by increasing muscle strength and improving mobility. METHODS/DESIGN The Home-Based Older People's Ex...

OBJECTIVE to conduct a systematic review of published studies that test the validity and reliability of fall-risk assessment tools for use among older adults in community, home-support, long-term and acute care settings. METHODS searches were conducted in EbscoHost and MEDLINE for published studies in the English language between January 1980 and July 2004, where the primary or secondary purp...

INTRODUCTION A growing number of medically complex older adults reside in long-term care (LTC) and often require physical rehabilitation (PR). While PR is effective at maintaining or improving a patient's physical function, the breadth of PR interventions evaluated in LTC, which outcomes or quality indicators (QI) can be used to evaluate PR, and what tools or models can be used to determine eli...

BACKGROUND As in most fields of health care, societal and political changes encourage suppliers of long-term care to put their clients at the center of care and service provision and become more responsive towards client needs and requirements. However, the diverse, multiple and dynamic nature of demand for long-term care complicates the movement towards demand-based care provision. This paper ...

Aging has been an important population trend of the twentieth century, with most elderly people living in developing countries. Little has been published on the healthcare needs of elderly in the Pacific Islands. The Pacific Islands Geriatric Education Center, at the University of Hawaii, has a mission to promote training in geriatric education in the Pacific Islands to improve healthcare to th...

In long-term care settings, behavioral disturbances are exhibited more often by those residents with some level of cognitive impairment. The extent to which pain influences dysfunctional behaviors, and the extent to which pain manifests itself as dysfunctional behaviors, has not been empirically studied. The purpose of our study was to investigate the relationship between pain and behavioral di...

Highly mobile computing devices promise to improve quality of life, productivity, and performance. Increased situation awareness and reduced mental workload are two potential means by which this can be accomplished. However, it is difficult to measure these concepts in the "wild". We employed ultra-portable battery operated and wireless functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to non-invas...

BACKGROUND The interRAI Suite contains comprehensive geriatric assessment tools designed for various healthcare settings. Although each instrument is developed for a particular population, together they form an integrated health evaluation system. The interRAI Acute Care Minimum Data Set (interRAI AC) is tailored for hospitalized older persons. Our aim in this study was to translate and adapt t...