The Challenges of Research in the Care Home Setting

Annabelle Long is a Chartered Physiotherapist working as a Research Assistant at the University of Nottingham on a Dunhill Medical Trust funded PEACH study, which considers the role of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment in UK care homes. She has a developing research interest in wellbeing for people with dementia in community environments. In this blog she outlines the potential challenges and solutions in doing research at the health and social care interface.

As practitioners and researchers in care of older people, it is important for us to be continually working to include more dependent groups in research. The reason for doing so is to ensure that the evidence base can reliably be applied to the patients we see in everyday practice. However involving older people with dependency in research can be challenging because cognitive and physical impairments can make standard procedures for recruitment and data collection difficult.

Patients with vertebral fragility fractures treated in hospital – could we do better?

Terence Ong is a Research Fellow funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust at the Department for Healthcare of Older People, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. He discusses his Age and Ageing Paper Characteristics and outcomes of hospitalised patients with vertebral fragility fractures: a systematic review. He tweets @terenceongkk

Vertebral fragility fractures have received much attention lately due to growing research interest and increased awareness driven by high-profile osteoporosis groups such as the International Osteoporosis Foundation (through its vertebral fracture initiative) and the National Osteoporosis Society.

There is growing literature to support how well vertebral fragility fractures predicts future fractures, morbidity and risk of mortality. However, what has been lacking is research exploring the specific cohort of people with vertebral fractures who are admitted to hospital.

Can Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment make a difference to care home residents?

Adam Gordon is Clinical Associate Professor in Medicine of Older People at the University of Nottingham, a visiting Professor at City University London and an Honorary Consultant Geriatrician at Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.  He tweets @adamgordon1978.  Here he talks about a new research project considering the value of CGA in care home residents

Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) works. At least, it does when performed in an inpatient setting in an acute hospital. This has been shown over numerous systematic reviews and meta-analyses to be the case.  Older people with frailty who receive CGA experience better outcomes in terms of functional status, cognition, readmissions to hospital and numbers of days spent at home.