July 2018 issue of Age and Ageing journal is out now

The July 2018 issue of Age and Ageing, the journal of the British Geriatrics Society is out now.  A full table of contents is available here, with editorials, research papers, reviews, short reports, case reports book reviews and more.  

Hot topics in this issue include:

• Blood pressure targets in treatment of hypertension
• Falls prevention
• Probiotics and prevention of infection
• Improving healthcare outcomes in care homes
• Caregiver relationships and Parkinson’s disease

The Editor’s View article gives an overview of the issue with a summary of highlights. This article is free to read and can be viewed here.

May 2018 issue of Age and Ageing journal is out now

The May 2018 issue of Age and Ageing, the journal of the British Geriatrics Society is out now.  A full table of contents is available here, with editorials, research papers, reviews, short reports, case reports book reviews and more.  

Hot topics in this issue include:

• New pain assessment guideline
• Future population burden of
  multimorbidity
• Systemic anti-cancer treatment for
  older people
• Treating malnutrition in care homes
• Effects of different types of
  exercise in older people
• Research methods – diagnostic test
  accuracy studies

The Editor’s View article gives an overview of the issue with a summary of highlights. This article is free to read and can be viewed here.

The Second BGS Cultural Revolution- and the Living Well SIG

Sir Muir Gray has worked for the National Health Service in England since 1972, occupying a variety of senior positions during that time. He is an internationally renowned authority on healthcare systems and has advised governments of several countries outside the UK including Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain and Germany. He tweets @muirgray

The British Geriatrics Society can be proud of the culture change it has achieved by providing leadership in the last seventy years.  When the BGS was founded the prevailing beliefs of not only the public but also the medical profession, were that the problems of older people were due to the ageing process and not due to treatable disease – older people therefore needed “care” rather than accurate diagnosis, effective treatment and rehabilitation. The BGS and individual consultants should be proud of their achievements. There has been a revolution in the care of older people with disease.

Promoting Activity, Independence and Stability in Early Dementia (PrAISED)

Professor Rowan H Harwood is a geriatrician at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, and the University of Nottingham, with particular interests in delirium, dementia and end of life care, who maintains an active portfolio of research. He tweets @RowanHarwood 

Can exercise-based therapy prevent or delay disability and dependency in those in the early stages of dementia?

We have heard the drum beat of gloomy messages. We cannot continue to cope with ever greater demands for health and social care. Prevention is better than cure, but the NHS is ‘on the hook’ for failing to take prevention seriously.

There is a semblance of a response. Sustainability and Transformation Plans emphasise prevention. We know that some groups, such as people with frailty or dementia, are at risk of crises and functional decline, and on the cusp of dependency and need for services. It makes sense to identify people at risk earlier, and intervene.

Selfie with a centenarian!

Esther Clift is a Consultant Practitioner Trainee in Frailty, and Vice Chair of the BGS nurses and AHP Council. She is undertaking a Doctorate in Clinical Practice at Southampton University on the uptake of exercise by older people. She was inspired by an interview with Dr Frankland on the Today Programme, and went to ask him about his own use of exercise.

‘I just think he should have told me, I’m not stupid!’ – Dr AW Frankland reflects on his introduction to Strength and Balance exercises.

Dr AW Frankland was born the year the Titanic sank, and started medical school in Oxford when Stanley Baldwin was Prime Minister. He was supervised by Sir Alexander Fleming at St Marys and is described as the ‘grandfather of allergy research’. His daily hour long supervisions with Fleming never included discussing patients – ‘he was a pure scientist, who wanted to talk about science.’

Can Irish set dancing benefit your health?

Joanne Shanahan is a Chartered Physiotherapist and Irish set dancing teacher. She completed her PhD in the University of Limerick. Joanne was the lead co-author of “Set dancing for people with Parkinson’s disease: an information resource for Irish set dancing teachers”. In this blog Joanne discusses her research.

Set dancing is an Irish cultural and social dance form. It involves dancing in a group of eight (sometimes four) people and is accompanied by the lively distinct beat of Irish dance music. Today set dancing is enjoyed by people worldwide with classes, workshops and ceilis organised all year round. Until recently the health benefits of set dancing were unknown. Recent Age and Aging publications by Shanahan et al. (2016), presented at the Irish Gerontology Society Annual Meeting 2016, have informed this question.

July issue of Age & Ageing now available

(This is a corrected version of a blog published last week) 

The July 2015 issue of Age and Ageing, the journal of the British Geriatrics Society is out now!

A full table of contents is available here, with editorials, research papers, reviews, short reports, case reports book reviews and more. Hot topics this issue include:

• Pharmacotherapy for type 2 diabetes
• Exercise regimens and bone health
• Balance training for in-patient rehabilitations
• What are frailty instruments for?
• Oestrogen replacement in postmenopausal women

The Editor’s View can be read here.

This issue’s free access papers are:

• Systematic review of EASY-Care needs assessment for community-dwelling older people
• Patterns in health-related behaviours and fall injuries among older people: a population-based study in Stockholm
• A comparison of subjective and objective measures of physical activity from the Newcastle 85+ study

One third of care home residents may suffer muscle dysfunction

A new report published in Age & Ageing gives updated figures on the prevalence of sarcopenia (muscle dysfunction), and calls for active screening of older adults along with exercise programs to help manage the condition. The systematic review revealed new details around sarcopenia – an important health condition which is associated with an increased risk of falls and functional dependence.

The report shows that sarcopenia may affect as many as 1 in 20 adults, and up to 1 in 3 care home residents. These findings come from an international collaborative study, which uses a new international consensus definition of sarcopenia to draw together all the results from recent cutting-edge research.

The report also reveals that there are successful treatments available to manage the condition. Exercise interventions, including endurance and resistance training, appear to improve muscle strength and function, as do short term nutritional intervention trials using proteins, essential amino acids, leucine or beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate (although evidence from longer-term trials is sparse).

More than just child’s play: Can exer-gaming improve the health and well being of older adults living at home?

Kimberly Miller is a Heart and Stroke Foundation Research Fellow and Research Coordinator (FAST study) at the University of British Columbia, Canada.

The World Health Organisation recommends regular physical activity for older individuals as an important preventative measure against disease and disability. While we all recognize that regular physical activity is important, it can be difficult for many people to achieve.  Against this background, there has been increasing interest in the potential for using popular, commercially available gaming systems, such as the Nintendo^TM Wii, as a means of exercising in the comfort and convenience ones’ own home.

In our article in Age and Ageing we review the evidence for virtual reality and gaming system use by older adults to exercise in their homes.

What can older people tell us about their experiences of therapeutic exercise as part of a falls prevention service?

Janet Husk is a Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Manager at the Clinical Effectiveness and Evaluation Unit of the Royal College of Physicians

The answer is a great deal as you can see in this article on ‘older people’s experiences of therapeutic exercise’ – available online in Age and Ageing. Don’t think it was just  younger people (55 to 74 years) that responded; some people that completed a questionnaire were over 95 years of age which just goes to show that people of all ages were exercising and  were able to give important feedback about their experiences of NHS run therapeutic exercise programmes to reduce falls.