September 2017 issue of Age and Ageing journal is out now

The September 2017 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:

The future of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment

Causes of unsafe primary care

Improving medication adherence after hospital discharge

Oral health in hospitals and care homes

Research methods: how to do a systematic review

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.

Joining up care for older people with frailty

Across the UK, innovative collaborations between GPs and specialist geriatricians are paving the way to better care for older people with frailty

A new joint report from the Royal College of GPs and the British Geriatrics Society has been published today, showcasing how GPs and geriatricians are collaborating to design and lead innovative schemes to improve the provision of integrated care for older people with frailty.

Advancements in medicine are a great success story, and as a result our patients are living longer, but they are also increasingly living with multiple, long term conditions and that brings a number of challenges for general practice and the wider NHS.

Older patients make up the majority of those attending GP surgeries and acute hospitals so getting the right combinations of care in the right place and at the right time is crucial to avert avoidable admissions and delayed discharge from hospital.

Curiouser and curiouser: the changing numbers in dementia diagnosis

Tom Dening is Professor of Dementia Research at the Institute of Mental Health at the University of Nottingham. He tweets at @TomDening

Dementia is getting more common as the population of the UK and, for that matter, the world gets older. But just how common? How many people are out there? It’s a really important question for us all.

There have been some interesting developments over the last year. Until then, the official figure was 800,000 in the UK. This was based on projections from the MRC Cognitive Functioning and Ageing Study (CFAS), data that were collected during the 1990s, and updated based on the demographic profile of the elderly population since then. So this figure was based on numbers around 20 years old.

Therefore it was important to replicate the study and eventually CFAS II was funded and carried out. The team reported their findings in the Lancet last year.

The Red Flag tool for diagnosing Motor Neurone Disease

Jennifer Bedford of the Motor Neurone Disease Association announces their new tool, Red Flag, for supporting GPs to diagnose Motor Neurone Disease. 

Motor neurone disease (MND) is a devastating progressive degenerative disease of the motor neurones. Whilst it is rare, with a prevalence of 5-7 per 100,000, GPs can expect to see 1-2 cases in their career; and thus  important that awareness of it is raised.

Working with GPs and Care Home staff to reduce emergency hospital admissions

The poster by R Lisk, K Yeong, A Nasim, B Mandal, R Nari, Z Dhakam can be found at the BGS Conference in the exhibition space at stand number 76.

Residents of Care Homes with Nursing tend to be frail, have multiple diagnoses and high levels of dependency.  This results in complex care needs. Many experience multiple admissions to hospital, often with long lengths of stay.

This initiative was aimed at reducing the number of emergency admissions to our Trust from local Care Homes with Nursing, by working in partnership with staff in the homes and local GPs.  The aim was to help provide more bespoke care for this vulnerable patient group, keeping them out of hospital whenever it was possible and appropriate to do so.  The project was also part of a Trust-wide response to the new emergency admission cap introduced through the National Operating Framework 2010/11.

Move Aside, Geriatrician!

Keith Miller is a GP in Leeds and a member of Leeds West Clinical Commissioning Group. He tweets at @keester76

We all know we have an ageing population. We stare with trepidation at the impending challenges of the ageing baby-boom generation, and the increasing numbers of people living with multiple long-term conditions. We also know that the NHS is developing through a time of unprecedented change, and the financial efficiencies it must realise require fundamental reorganisation of the way we have come to deliver services to our populations. Primary and community care are the answer.