1,720,957 research outputs found
La valutazione antropometrica e il fabbisogno calorico nell’anziano nei diversi setting curativi ed assistenziali: sono indispensabili nella pratica clinica?
No full textIl lavoro si propone di descrivere l'importanza della valutazione antropometrica e della corretta valutazione nutrizionale in una popolazione anziana
L’anziano fragile e il paziente anziano fragile: solo problema terminologico? G Gerontol 2006; 54: 255-259.
No full textIl lavoro si propone di descrivere il conceto di fragilità in relazione al paziente anziano in termini non solo semantici, ma clinici e fisiopatologici
The "nondipper" elderly: a clinical entity or a bias?
No full textOBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence of nondipper (ND) blood pressure profile in the elderly and to ascertain whether the ND pattern of ambulatory blood pressure in the elderly is an artifact or represents a specific clinical entity. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, observational study. SETTING: Cardiovascular diagnostic center, division of geriatrics, secondary care, institutional practice. PARTICIPANTS: Sixty-five consecutive community-dwelling elderly hypertensive patients referred to the cardiovascular center. MEASUREMENTS: The patients underwent actigraphy and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and completed a sleep assessment questionnaire. Patients were divided based on the night-time decrease in blood pressure (>10%: dippers (n=19); <10%: NDs (n=46)). RESULTS: Nondippers displayed poorer quality of sleep, as demonstrated objectively by actigraphic data; they obtained a higher mean score+/-standard deviation on the sleep questionnaire (4.6+/-2.9 vs 3.0+/-1.1, P=.030) and were taking more benzodiazepines (33.1% vs 10.7%, P=.035), indicating that their usual sleep quality was worse than that of dippers. Multivariate analysis showed a strong correlation between nondipper profile and quality of sleep and also with comorbidity, total number of drugs being taken, and pulse pressure. CONCLUSION: Actigraphy demonstrates impaired sleep in the nondipper elderly. Nevertheless, the nondipping pattern seems independent of the discomfort of cuff-inflation during the night and occurs in association with higher comorbidity and polypharmacy; therefore, it cannot be considered a bias, but is related to detrimental clinical conditions that should be studied in depth.OBJECTIVES:
To determine the prevalence of nondipper (ND) blood pressure profile in the elderly and to ascertain whether the ND pattern of ambulatory blood pressure in the elderly is an artifact or represents a specific clinical entity.
DESIGN:
Cross-sectional, observational study.
SETTING:
Cardiovascular diagnostic center, division of geriatrics, secondary care, institutional practice.
PARTICIPANTS:
Sixty-five consecutive community-dwelling elderly hypertensive patients referred to the cardiovascular center.
MEASUREMENTS:
The patients underwent actigraphy and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and completed a sleep assessment questionnaire. Patients were divided based on the night-time decrease in blood pressure (>10%: "dippers" (n=19); <10%: "NDs" (n=46)).
RESULTS:
Nondippers displayed poorer quality of sleep, as demonstrated objectively by actigraphic data; they obtained a higher mean score+/-standard deviation on the sleep questionnaire (4.6+/-2.9 vs 3.0+/-1.1, P=.030) and were taking more benzodiazepines (33.1% vs 10.7%, P=.035), indicating that their usual sleep quality was worse than that of dippers. Multivariate analysis showed a strong correlation between nondipper profile and quality of sleep and also with comorbidity, total number of drugs being taken, and pulse pressure.
CONCLUSION:
Actigraphy demonstrates impaired sleep in the nondipper elderly. Nevertheless, the nondipping pattern seems independent of the discomfort of cuff-inflation during the night and occurs in association with higher comorbidity and polypharmacy; therefore, it cannot be considered a "bias," but is related to detrimental clinical conditions that should be studied in depth
Specificity and total positive rate of head-up, tilt testing potentiated with sublingual nitroglycerin in older patients with unexplained syncope.
No full textThe aim of this study was to assess the specificity and total positive rate of head-up tilt testing (HUTT) potentiated with sublingual nitroglycerin in detecting the vasovagal origin of unexplained syncope in the elderly, since the diagnostic value of this non-invasive test has not yet been proven in this age group. In a period of 3 years, 128 elderly patients (mean age 71.6 +/-5.1 years, 50% males) with syncope of unknown origin, and 101 control subjects matched for age and gender were tilted upright to 60 degrees for 45 minutes. If syncope did not occur, sublingual nitroglycerin (0.4 mg) was administered, and observation Was continued for 20 minutes. The positive response was defined as the reproduction of syncope or pre-syncope according to VASIS definition. During the unmedicated phase, syncope occurred in 26 patients (20.3%) and in no members of the control group. After nitroglycerin, 53 patients (41.4%) and 2 control subjects (2%) displayed syncope. The total positive rate of the test Was 61.8% With a specificity of 98.0%. In conclusion, HUTT potentiated with sublingual nitroglycerin provides an adequate specificity and total positive rate in old patients with unexplained syncope; therefore it can be proposed as a useful diagnostic tool to detect the vasovagal origin of syncope not only in middle but also in advanced age
The "Time and Change" test: An appropriate method to detect cognitive decline in the elderly
No full textThe Time and Change (T&C) test is an easy and time-saving test validated for the detection of dementia. Our aim was to determine how geriatric features like depression, disability, and comorbidity are able to influence the result of the T&C and, consequently, to decide whether it could be a reliable screening test for cognitive impairment in the elderly. A total of 220 participants (mean age = 75.8 +/- 9.6 years, 63.7% females) underwent the T&C, Mini-Mental State Examination, and the Clock Drawing Test; Activities of Daily Living, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, comorbidity, and depression were also evaluated. Time and Change-positive participants were older, had poorer cognitive tests, and had higher levels of disability and comorbidity than participants testing negative. Multivariate analysis showed that cognitive impairment and comorbidity were the only features that influenced the T&C, regardless of age, education, disability, and depression. We conclude that the T&C should be implemented in primary care because it quickly identifies elderly patients with cognitive impairment who need a more accurate evaluation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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