Nursing home oral health care measures and pneumonia

The study highlights that there is limited understanding by family carers and older people of funding arrangements, and it often falls to the care home providers to supply information.

This Cochrane review update of the effects of oral care measures in preventing nursing home-acquired pneumonia inlides 6 RCTs. Low-certainty evidence suggests that professional oral care may reduce mortality compared to usual care when measured at 24 months but evidence for other effects is inconclusive.

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PTSD, anxiety and depression in UK frontline health care workers during COVID-19

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In his debut blog, Will Kapurura summarises a paper that explores the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of healthcare workers in the UK during the early part of the 2020 pandemic.

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STrAtegies for RelaTives (START): long-lasting effect on the wellbeing of family carers of dementia patients

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A group of UCL Mental Health MSc students summarise a recent RCT assessing the clinical and cost-effectiveness over 6 years of the START intervention for family carers of people with dementia.

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Reablement in a care home context: a feasibility study

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Bruce McClure’s blog looks at a feasibility study of ‘LifeFul’, a reablement programme in the care home context.

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Oral care for nursing home residents

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This Cochrane review of the effects of oral care on prevention of nursing home acquired pneumonia included 4 RCTs providing low quality evidence that oral care may reduce mortality.

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Oral Health in nursing homes: education for staff and residents

All the evidence relates to care homes and there is hardly any evidence for any other setting.

9 trials were included in this Cochrane review of oral health education & training for care home residents & staff . These trials provided insufficient evidence from which to draw evidence about the effects of the interventions so more high quality studies are needed.

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Donepezil, nursing home placement and Alzheimer’s Disease

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Caroline Struthers reports on the findings of a follow-up paper of the DOMINO-AD trial, which compares Donepezil and Memantine for Moderate to Severe Alzheimer’s Disease, and looks at the effects these two drugs have on nursing home placement.

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Trial showed similar oral health improvements in nursing-home residents with manual and powered toothbrushes

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The 2010 Cochrane review of powered toothbrushes (Deacon et al) provided some evidence that rotational oscillation powered toothbrushes are more effective than other designs. However, the available evidence was based on short-term studies and the differences were small, so the clinical importance was unclear.  The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of [read the full story…]