OBJECTIVES This paper addresses recent steps for reforming the eligibility criteria of the German long-term care insurance that have been initiated to overcome shortcomings in the current system. METHODS Based on findings of a survey of international long-term care systems, assessment tools and the relevant literature on care needs a new tool for determining eligibility in the German long-ter...

The discovery of long-term potentiation (LTP) transformed research on the neurobiology of learning and memory. This did not happen overnight, but the discovery of an experimentally demonstrable phenomenon reflecting activity-driven neuronal and synaptic plasticity changed discussions about what might underlie learning from speculation into something much more concrete. Equally, however, the rel...

Adult mammalian brains are capable of some structural plasticity. Although the basic cellular mechanisms underlying learning and memory are being revealed, extrinsic factors contributing to this plasticity remain unspecified. White-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) are particularly well suited to investigate brain plasticity because they show marked seasonal changes in structure and function of...

BACKGROUND Delayed diagnosis of scabies can cause an institutional outbreak, which causes considerably economic burden to control. This study was to find the risk factors for delayed diagnosis of scabies in hospitalized patients from long-term care facilities. METHODS We conducted a retrospective analysis of the hospitalized patients from long-term care facilities, diagnosed to have scabies b...

OBJECTIVE We performed an integrated cross-sectional analysis of relationships between long-term care work environments, employee and resident satisfaction, and quality of patient care. METHODS Facility-level data came from a network of 203 skilled nursing facilities in 13 states in the eastern United States owned or managed by one company. K-means cluster analysis was applied to investigate ...

Currently, over 70% patients visiting home nursing stations receive service under the national long-term care insurance policy. As many of them are elderly, we should consider prevention and management of their pressure ulcers in nursing. It is well known that a risk of developing pressure ulcers is related to not only local factors but also other factors such as systemic and environmental cond...

BACKGROUND Investigation of frailty among elderly adults and development of prevention strategies to address this are critical in delaying progression of functional decline and thus extending healthy life expectancy. However, there has been no Japanese epidemiologic cohort study of frailty. The Hatoyama Cohort Study was launched in 2010 to identify factors that predict functional decline and to...

Data obtained from observing the residents of three long-term care facilities showed that the majority required some assistance in feeding. The facilities differed in the percentage of residents needing help and in the physical and attitudinal support given for self-feeding. Regardless of level of independence in feeding, most residents received adequate food intake. Physical problems, which po...

There are few high-quality studies of the costs of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), and the majority of studies focus on the costs of CDI in acute-care facilities. Analysis of the best available data, from 2008, indicates that CDI may have resulted in $4.8 billion in excess costs in US acute-care facilities. Other areas of CDI-attributable excess costs that need to be investigated are cos...

BACKGROUND Mobility decrease is reportedly age-dependent in community dwelling elderly, and a major factor of disability in the geriatric population. The purpose of this study is to examine whether mobility decrease, as assessed using a set of tests, is similarly age-dependent in elderly adults who already have disability. METHODS One hundred thirty-five community-dwelling elderly (54 men, 81...