Journal of the American Geriatrics Society最新文献

Background: Nursing home residents experience a large burden of invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. Data are limited regarding nursing home characteristics associated with differences in facility-level invasive MRSA rates.

Methods: We analyzed 2011-2015 data from CDC's Emerging Infections Program (EIP) active population- and laboratory-based surveillance for invasive MRSA cases within seven states. A nursing home-onset case was defined as MRSA cultured from a normally sterile site in a person living in a nursing home 3 days before culture collection. Facility rates were calculated as nursing home-onset cases per 100,000 resident-days. Nursing home resident-day denominators and facility characteristics were obtained from four Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) datasets. A general estimating equations model with a logit link assessed characteristics of the facilities with highest rates comprising 50% of nursing home MRSA cases ("high rates").

Results: The 626 nursing homes in the surveillance area had 2824 invasive MRSA cases; 82% of facilities had at ≥1 case. The 20% of facilities with highest rates (≥3.84 cases/100,000 resident-days) had 50% of nursing home-onset cases. In multivariable regression, facilities with high rates were more likely to have CMS-derived characteristics of presence of a resident with a multidrug-resistant organism; or greater proportions of residents who were male, were short stay (in the facility <100 days), had a nasogastric or percutaneous gastrostomy tube, or require extensive assistance with bed repositioning; and more likely to be in an EIP area with higher hospital-onset MRSA rates. Higher registered nurses staffing levels (hours/resident/day) and higher proportions of White residents were associated with lower rates.

Conclusions: Facilities with higher invasive MRSA rates served residents with more clinical and functional care needs. Increasing registered nurse staffing in high-risk facilities might assist with reduction of invasive MRSA rates. These findings could help prioritize nursing homes for future MRSA prevention work.

Background: The Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) is a comprehensive care model that aims to promote aging in the home and community for older adults who are nursing-home eligible needs-wise. Older adults experience age-related barriers to accessing behavioral health (BH) services. PACE programs play an important role in providing all-inclusive health care for individuals over 55 who are dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare. This article investigates behavioral health integration (BHI) within PACE Organizations (POs), produces a conceptual framework for BHI within PACE, and reports on current BH practices and programmatic needs to support the growing BH needs of participants.

Methods: The team adapted the BH-Serious Illness Care (BH-SIC) Model, to produce a conceptual framework for BHI within PACE (BHI-PACE Model). The model informed a mixed-methods sequential approach to assess BHI at POs that include (i) a survey, (ii) use-case interviews of POs, and (iii) qualitative analyses of interviews.

Results: We present the domains and subdomains for the BHI-PACE Model. With respect to the national BH in PACE assessment, 38 POs representing 119 sites and 25,806 participants participated in the survey and 15 POs representing 58 sites and 10,029 participants participated in interviews. Survey results revealed a high rate of BH comorbidities among PACE participants (60% median rate, IQR: 70-44). The most common reasons for referral to BH specialists were depression and mood disorders 92.1%, behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) 57.9%, and anxiety disorders 55.3%.

Conclusion: POs' current BH practices and challenges can guide other POs to better integrate BH. Integrating BH into the PACE model requires policy-level action, though quality measurement and value-based care efforts can support this endeavor.

Background: The extent to which disruptive surgical or medical events impact mortality and function is critical for anticipatory planning and informing goal-aligned care.

Methods: Using Health and Retirement Study data (2008-2018), we employed propensity score matching to compare the impact of hospitalization for hip fracture (a surgical event) or pneumonia (a medical event) among people with dementia to two groups: (1) people with dementia who did not experience these events; and (2) people without dementia who experienced an event. Dementia status was determined using validated cognitive assessments (Hurd method); hip fracture and pneumonia were identified from Medicare claims. Outcomes were 1-year mortality and function, defined as a summary score of requiring assistance with 6 ADL's and 5 IADL's, with higher scores indicating better function.

Results: Among people with dementia, predicted 1-year mortality was higher among those with hip fracture (35.4%) versus those without hip fracture (14.8%), with similar patterns for pneumonia (49.6% vs. 13.0%). Among people with dementia, function declined abruptly at time of hip fracture (-2.09 [95% CI -2.94, -1.25]) and continued to decline after (-0.48 [95% CI -0.87, -0.09]). There were similar patterns for pneumonia (drop at time of pneumonia of -1.49 [95% CI -2.0, -0.97] and after -0.05 [95% CI, -0.29, 0.19]). Compared to people without dementia with hip fracture, people with dementia had higher 1-year mortality (35.4%) versus people without dementia (24%), with similar patterns for pneumonia (49.6% vs. 39.7%). Function stabilized for people without dementia after hip fracture (-0.03, 95% CI -0.22, 0.16), which was significantly different than people without dementia (p < 0.0001). Function improved for people without dementia after pneumonia (0.13, 95% CI 0.03, 0.24), but was not statistically different than for people with dementia (p = 0.17).

Conclusion: Disruptive events such as hip fracture or pneumonia substantially alter the clinical trajectories of people with dementia.

Background: Cataract surgery is the most common surgical procedure performed for older US adults. Cataracts are associated with poor cognition and higher rates of dementia, but whether cataract surgery improves cognition for US older adults is not known. We examined the relationship between cataract surgery and long-term change in cognition in the Health and Retirement Study, a population-based study of older US adults linked with Medicare billing data.

Methods: We analyzed community-dwelling participants who underwent cataract surgery between 2000 and 2018, propensity-matched on age, sex, education (four levels), diabetes status (four levels), pre-procedural latent cognition, vision impairment, and interview timing and mode to older adults who did not have cataract surgery during the study period. Cataract surgery date was ascertained using Medicare billing data. We calculated latent value of cognition using biennial self/proxy cognitive assessments, and used linear mixed effects models adjusting for demographic and health factors to model cognition from 5 years before, to 5 years after, cataract surgery (or a simulated event, for controls). The primary measure was difference-in-differences estimate of latent cognition comparing the year prior, to the year after, cataract surgery or a simulated event.

Results: We analyzed 4384 older adults who underwent cataract surgery and 4384 matched controls (mean [SD] age 76.1 [6.8] years, 62.0% women, 83.9% non-Hispanic white). Across the first postoperative year, cataract surgical participants declined 0.002 (-0.002 to 0.006) units faster than nonsurgical controls (p = 0.37), equivalent to 8 (-10 to 26) days more cognitive aging. Post hoc subgroup analyses also found no difference in cognition for groups stratified by pre-procedural latent cognition (i.e., normal vs. cognitively impaired) or vision (i.e., vision-impaired vs. intact).

Conclusion: Under typical United States practice, cataract surgery for older patients was not significantly associated with cognitive improvement or decline in the year after, compared with the year before, surgery.

Background: Community mobility is a vital patient-centered outcome for older adults living in the community. These deficits in mobility are linked to social isolation, increased hospitalizations, and higher mortality rates. Impaired pulmonary function may be a modifiable risk factor for mobility decline, with existing inequities in lung health potentially contributing disproportionately to mobility loss among Black older adults.

Materials/methods: A cohort of 4742 community-dwelling older adults (weighted n = 29,180,893) with self-reported ability to walk 3 or more blocks in their community was drawn from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS). Pulmonary function was measured by PEF in NHATS. Community mobility loss was defined as self-reported inability to walk ≥ 3 blocks in the 1-year follow-up assessment. Hierarchical multivariable logistic regression was used and adjusted for demographics, comorbidities, pain, and assistive device use.

Results: Overall, 73.7% of the sample had normal PEF, 18.6% had moderate impairment, and 7.7% had severe impairment. Those with severe impairment were more likely to be male and identify as Black. In unadjusted analyses, 8.8% of older adults with normal PEF experienced mobility loss, compared with 12.7% of those with moderate impairment, and 19.7% with severe impairment. Odds of mobility loss were 111% higher for those with severe PEF impairment as compared to those with normal PEF (OR = 2.1, 95% CI 1.2-3.7) in fully adjusted models, with weaker relationships being observed for those with moderately impaired PEF (OR = 1.2, 95% CI 0.8-1.8).

Conclusions: Nearly 8%, or an estimated 1 million community-ambulating U.S. older adults, had severe impairments in peak expiratory flow in 2015; these older adults have a substantially higher risk of losing the ability to ambulate community distances over the subsequent year.

Background: To ensure appropriate care for the individual older adult, an ideal treatment should align with patients' values. However, healthcare professionals struggle with how to elucidate patient values effectively. To offer guidance to healthcare professionals, we performed a scoping review, thereby mapping and categorizing instruments specifically developed to elucidate values of older adults in clinical practice.

Methods: A systematic search was conducted from inception up to October 2023 in PubMed, Psychinfo, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library. Articles on instruments clarifying older adults' values in a clinical setting were included. Articles on instruments elucidating patients' wishes, preferences, or goals were excluded.

Results: After screening 7759 eligible studies, we included 37 studies outlining unique instruments. Instruments were subdivided into the following categories, based on the setting in which the instruments were used: "instruments with a general scope," "health record-based interventions," "advance directives," "advance care planning programs," and "decision support tools." Values were made plain in different ways, and instruments promoted different approaches. We further categorized these approaches alongside different axes: "open versus closed," "process-oriented versus decision-oriented," "confronting versus nonconfronting," and "explicit versus implicit." Some instruments focused on establishing a process of deliberation, whereas others focused on achieving treatment decisions.

Conclusion: We found and categorized a large range of instruments, which promoted different ways to elucidate older adults' values. This scoping review serves as an introduction for healthcare professionals to available instruments, which help to clarify patients' values. By categorizing the instruments along different axes of approaching value clarification, we offer healthcare professionals guidance for selecting an appropriate instrument.

Background: Little is known about how patients' preferences, expectations, and beliefs (jointly referred to as perspectives) influence deprescribing. We evaluated the association of patients' self-reported perspectives with subsequent deprescribing of diabetes medications in older adults with type 2 diabetes.

Methods: Longitudinal cohort study of 1629 pharmacologically treated adults ages 65-100 years with type 2 diabetes who received care at Kaiser Permanente of Northern California (KPNC) and participated in the Diabetes Preferences and Self-Care survey (2019). The survey asked questions about perspectives regarding the use of diabetes medications. Deprescribing was identified during the 24 months following the survey and defined as any of the following: discontinuation of one or more therapeutic classes, reduction in frequency of daily dosing, reduction in total daily pill count, or reduction in total daily dose for oral hypoglycemic agents. Rates of deprescribing and measures of relative risk were calculated for patients' perspectives and select clinical factors. Models predicting deprescribing were adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, health literacy, baseline number of diabetes medications, duration of diabetes, overtreatment per Endocrine Society guidelines, and KPNC eligibility for targeted deprescribing and weighted to account for the age-stratified complex sampling design and survey response.

Results: Six hundred seventy-three (38%) patients experienced deprescribing over a mean follow-up of 23 months. Deprescribing was significantly associated with the following patient perspectives: not expecting to need diabetes medication for life (RR = 1.48, 95% CI: 1.07-2.03) and not recognizing that taking fewer medications could lead to higher blood sugar levels (RR = 1.31, 95% CI: 1.09-1.58).

Conclusions: Patients' perspectives may enable or hinder deprescribing, emphasizing the importance of soliciting these perspectives during shared decision-making. Effective deprescribing will benefit from understanding patients' perspectives and fostering patient-provider communication about medication changes throughout the disease course.

Background: As the US population continues to age, depression and other mental health issues have become a significant challenge for healthy aging. Few studies, however, have examined the prevalence of depression in community-dwelling older adults in the United States.

Methods: Baseline data from the Longitudinal Research on Aging Drivers study were analyzed to examine the prevalence and correlates of depression in a multisite sample of community-dwelling adults aged 65-79 years who were enrolled and assessed between July 2015 and March 2017. The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) depression scale was used to determine the depression status.

Results: Of the 2990 study participants, 186 (6.2%) had depression at the time of assessment. Elevated prevalence of depression was found in those who were 65-69 years of age (7.9%); were women (7.2%); were not married (8.1%); had attained an education of high school or less (8.3%); or had annual household incomes less than $50,000 (10.7%). Older adults with a positive history of depression or chronic medical conditions (e.g., diabetes mellitus and anxiety) had a significantly higher prevalence of depression whereas those engaged in volunteering activities had a significantly lower prevalence of depression. With adjustment for demographic characteristics and comorbidities, volunteering was associated with a 43% reduction in the odds of depression (adjusted odds ratio: 0.57, 95% confidence interval 0.40-0.81).

Conclusions: The point prevalence of depression in this multisite sample of community-dwelling older adults in the United States was 6.2%, which varied significantly with demographic characteristics and comorbid conditions. Engagement in volunteering activities might help older adults to reduce their risk of depression.