BACKGROUND The aim of this study performed in patients undergoing major orthopedic surgery was to assess the impact of changes in practice on both the incidence of postoperative myocardial ischemia (PMI) detected by serial measurements of troponin Ic and long-term cardiac outcome. METHODS During a 3-yr period, troponin Ic was measured on the first 3 days after major orthopedic surgery in a mu...

BACKGROUND The pathophysiological background of catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia is well understood, but the clinical features of this stress-induced arrhythmic disorder, especially the incidence and risk factors of arrhythmic events, have not been fully ascertained. METHODS AND RESULTS The outcome in 101 catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia patients, inc...

The aim of this study was to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for long-term care insurance (LTCI) and to explore the determinants of demand for LTCI in China. We collected data from a household survey conducted in Qinghai and Zhejiang on a sample of 1842 households. We relied on contingent valuation methods to elicit the demand for LTCI and random effects logistic regression to analyze the fac...

OBJECTIVES To assess the feasibility, validity and responsiveness of an individualized measure--goal attainment scaling-in long-term care. DESIGN Prospective descriptive study. SETTING One academic and three community-based long-term care facilities. SUBJECTS 53 nursing-home patients seen in consultation between July 1996 and June 1997. INTERVENTION Specialized geriatric medicine consul...

Background and Aim: Carcinoma of the uterine cervix is a significant cause of mortality because of malignancy in women. Radiotherapy is a major treatment modality for invasive cervical cancer with good treatment outcome in early-stage patients. However, substantial treatment failures still occur in the advanced-stage patients. In this case report a long term follow up of a 58 years old woman wi...

BACKGROUND Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is claimed to have a variety of benefits, but almost all published results are anecdotal. We characterized the resident population in long-term care facilities desiring AAT and determined whether AAT can objectively improve loneliness. METHODS Of 62 residents, 45 met inclusion criteria for the study. These 45 residents were administered the Demographic...

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY Japan introduced a nationwide long-term care insurance (LTCI) system in 2000, making long-term care (LTC) a right for older adults regardless of income and family availability. To shed light on its implications for family caregiving, we investigated perceived filial obligation norms among coresident primary family caregivers before and after the policy change. DESIGN AND ...

BACKGROUND Acute care facilities are connected via patient sharing, forming a network. However, patient sharing extends beyond this immediate network to include sharing with long-term care facilities. The extent of long-term care facility patient sharing on the acute care facility network is unknown. The objective of this study was to characterize and determine the extent and pattern of patient...

This study used Monte Carlo simulations to examine the ability of the two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimator and two-stage residual inclusion (2SRI) estimators with varying forms of residuals to estimate the local average and population average treatment effect parameters in models with binary outcome, endogenous binary treatment, and single binary instrument. The rarity of the outcome and th...