Hospital in the home: what next?

It is time to focus on issues of roll-out and quality control.     

Escalating the pathway from the associate's degree in nursing to the bachelor of science in nursing and/or the master of science in nursing: what is standing in the way?

For more than 25 years, promoting higher levels of education for registered nurses (RNs) has been a strategic theme in national reports. Yet, only 42.2% of RNs in North Carolina hold a bachelor of science in nursing, a master of science in nursing, or a doctorate in nursing. Creating a seamless educational pathway for RNs is essential for achieving this goal.     

Mirizzi’s syndrome: a diagnostic dilemma

A 62-year-old male presented with a history of upper abdominal discomfort. Past history included asymptomatic gallstones. Abdominal ultrasound and CT demonstrated gallstones within a thick-walled gallbladder, and intra and extrahepatic duct dilatation. Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) revealed a stricture within the mid-portion of the common bile duct. At laparotomy, a single large stone was found causing external compression of the common bile duct causing a Mirizzi’s-type stricture. At repeat ERCP, cholangiogram showed no evidence of stricture. Clinicians should be aware that no definite clinical signs distinguish Mirizzi’s syndrome and surgical exploration is often required for diagnosis.     

Retractions in the research literature: misconduct or mistakes?

OBJECTIVE: To determine how commonly articles are retracted on the basis of unintentional mistakes, and whether these articles differ from those retracted for scientific misconduct in authorship, funding, type of study, publication, and time to retraction. DATA SOURCE AND STUDY SELECTION: All retractions of English language publications indexed in MEDLINE between 1982 and 2002 were extracted. DATA EXTRACTION: Two reviewers categorised the reasons for retraction of each article as misconduct (falsification, fabrication, or plagiarism) or unintentional error (mistakes in sampling, procedures, or data analysis; failure to reproduce findings; accidental omission of information about methods or data analysis). DATA SYNTHESIS: Of the 395 articles retracted between 1982 and 2002, 107 (27.1%) were retracted because of scientific misconduct, 244 (61.8%) because of unintentional errors, and 44 (11.1%) could not be categorised. Compared with articles retracted because of misconduct, articles with unintentional mistakes were more likely to have multiple authors, no reported funding source, and to be published in frequently cited journals. They were more likely to be retracted by the author(s) of the article, and the retraction was more likely to occur more promptly (mean, 2.0 years; 95% CI, 1.8-2.2) than articles withdrawn because of misconduct (mean, 3.3 years; 95% CI, 2.7-3.9) (P < 0.05 for all comparisons). CONCLUSIONS: Retractions in the biomedical literature were more than twice as likely to result from unintentional mistakes than from scientific misconduct. The different characteristics of articles retracted for misconduct and for mistakes reflect distinct causes and, potentially, distinct solutions.     

Chinese medicine in the treatment of Behcet’s disease’s uveitis: A case report

Introduction Behcet’s disease(BD) is an multi-system inflammatory vasculitis based on small and large vessels of the venous and arterial system.About 80%of BD patients have ocular lesions characterized by recurrent iridocyclitis,retinal vasculitis,and retinal ischemia.Frequent recurrence of these lesions,leading to macular edema and optic atrophy,can eventually result in severe loss of vision.Western medicine treatment focuses on steroid and immunosuppressive agents;however,the reduction of medication dose can lead to relapse,which is a difficult problem in     

Paediatric palliative care at home: a single centre’s experience

INTRODUCTION

There is increased awareness of paediatric palliative care in Malaysia, but no local published data on home care services. We aimed to describe the paediatric experience at Hospis Malaysia, a community-based palliative care provider in Malaysia.

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective case note review of patients aged up to 21 years who were referred to Hospis Malaysia from 2009 to 2013.

RESULTS

A total of 137 patients (92 male, 45 female) with a median age of 140 (3–250) months were included in this study. The majority (71.5%) had malignancies. At referral, 62 patients were still in hospital and 17 died prior to discharge. A total of 108 patients received home visits. At the first home visit, 89.8% of patients had at least one physical symptom. Pain was the most common (52.5%) symptom. Patients had various supportive devices: 39 were on feeding tubes, ten had tracheostomies, five were on bilevel positive airway pressure and ten had urinary catheters. 66 families discussed the preferred location of care at end-of-life. Among those who died, 78.9% died at home, as they preferred (p < 0.001). Regression analysis showed no statistically significant association between a home death and age, diagnosis and number of home visits. Bereavement follow-up occurred for 93.3% of families.

CONCLUSION

Community care referrals tend to occur late, with 25.5% of patients dying within two weeks of referral. At referral, patients often had untreated physical symptoms. The majority of families preferred and had a home death.     

The treatability requirement in psychopathy: a new ethical dilemma?

The Mental Health Act 1983 for England and Wales includes a treatability requirement, first introduced in the Mental Health (Amendment) Act 1982, that outlaws compulsory admission of a patient for treatment of "psychopathic disorder or mental impairment" unless "such treatment is likely to alleviate or prevent a deterioration of his condition." The author contends that this requirement raises a new ethical dilemma for psychiatry because of the uncertainty associated with predicting the outcome of psychopathic disorder.     

Autonomy or protection from harm? Judgements of German courts on care for the elderly in nursing homes

The increase in life expectancy in developed countries has lead to an increase in the number of elderly people cared for in nursing homes. Given the physical frailty and deterioration of mental capacities in many of these residents, questions arise as to their autonomy and to their protection from harm. In 2005, one of the highest German courts, the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) issued a seminal judgement that dealt with the obligations of nursing homes and with the preserving of autonomy and privacy in nursing home residents. An elderly woman had sustained a fracture of the neck of the femur during a fall. The health insurance company held that the nursing home had breached its obligations to protect her from falling and sued the home for the hospital costs of her treatment. However, the BGH maintained that the case of the health insurance was not justified. It held that obligations of nursing homes have to be limited to normal arrangements within reasonable financial and personal effort, and that the autonomy of residents had to be protected from unnecessary interference. Permanent control or even restraining measures to reduce each risk would deprive the patient fully of her autonomy, and must therefore be hindered. Other judgments of other courts have emphasised the "protectionist" approach. The article deals with these different approaches and comments on both rationales. It will be shown that both approaches must be differentiated to establish fully autonomy and protection for nursing home residents.     

Advances in the therapy of Barrett’s Esophagus

The rising incidence of esophageal adenocarcinoma(EAC) in the world has led to continued interest in its precursor lesion,Barrett’s esophagus(BE). This review endeavors to summarize the recent advances in the therapy of BE with an emphasis on novel endoscopic therapies.     

Herbal Medicine in the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease

Associated with the aging of our world population is a sharp increase in the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease,which not only poses a significant health issue but also presents a serious social problem.Although pharmacological treatments were developed based on existing hypotheses,the disease pathogenesis remains to be fully elucidated.Given the complexity of Alzheimer’s disease,Chinese herbal medicine appears to have therapeutic potential for Alzheimer’s disease through multi-target and multi-pathway approach at cellular and molecular levels and holistic adjustment of the body at organ system levels.Recently,a significant breakthrough has been made in the research of Chinese medicine for Alzheimer’s disease.In this article,we review the experimental research progress in understanding how Chinese medicine could be used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.