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Biomedical subjects

M G Ory

Publications and source records attributed to M G Ory.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Older adults' perceptions of their health and functioning in relation to sleep disturbance, falling, and urinary incontinence.FICSIT Group.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate variation in older adults' perceived health and functioning that is associated with self-reported sleep disturbance, falling, and urinary incontinence, controlling for self-reported depression, ambulation difficulty, number of chronic conditions, and subjects' sociodemographic characteristics. DESIGN: Multicenter prospective study (FICSIT). SETTING: Persons age 70 and older living in the community evaluated at baseline. PARTICIPANTS: 239 women, 113 men; mean age = 77. MEASUREMENTS: Sleep disturbance score based on EPESE questions, recent falls history (Y/N), incontinent episodes (Y/N), CES-D score, SIP Ambulation score, and 4 MOS SF-36 scale scores. RESULTS: Women were significantly more likely than men to report multiple conditions (sleep disturbance, falling, incontinence) and to report lower levels of functioning as measured by 3 of 4 SF-36 scales. In regression analyses, sleep disturbance and urinary incontinence were significant predictors of perceived limitations in usual role activities because of physical health problems. Depression and ambulation measures significantly predicted scores on all 4 SF-36 scales. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis suggests that it is important to address depressive symptomatology and ambulation difficulty--which in turn are related to sleep disturbance, falling, and urinary incontinence--in efforts to enhance older adults' perceived health and functioning.

Accidental Falls↗

A comparison of effectiveness of biofeedback and pelvic muscle exercise treatment of stress incontinence in older community-dwelling women.

BACKGROUND: Research using biofeedback as a treatment for sphincteric incontinence began with Kegel's early studies using a perineometer and pelvic muscle exercises demonstrating a 90% improvement in urine loss symptoms. More recent studies using varying combinations of biofeedback and pelvic muscle exercises found symptom reduction rates of 78% to 90%, but these studies lacked the rigor of a "phase three," or randomized controlled clinical trial. METHODS: A randomized controlled trial assessed the efficacy of biofeedback for older women for treatment of sphincteric incompetence. One hundred thirty-five community-dwelling women were randomized in a single-blind trial to three groups: biofeedback, pelvic muscle exercise, or control. Incontinent episodes were monitored over 8 weeks of treatment and at 3 and 6 months thereafter. RESULTS: The number of incontinent episodes decreased significantly in the biofeedback and pelvic muscle exercise subjects but not in the control subjects for all severity of incontinence frequency subgroups. Improvement was maintained within the moderate and severe symptom subgroups for both treatments for at least 6 months but declined in subjects with mild incontinence frequency. Pelvic muscle activity (EMG) was significantly correlated with decreases in incontinent episodes, and only the biofeedback subjects showed significant improvement in EMGs. CONCLUSIONS: Biofeedback and pelvic muscle exercises are efficacious for sphincteric incompetence in older women. Benefits are maintained and improvement continues for at least 6 months postintervention. These therapies may be useful before considering invasive treatment.

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Maintaining continence in nursing home residents through the application of industrial quality control.

Supervisory nurses in seven nursing homes were taught how to implement a quality control management system that permitted the time-efficient assessment of how well a prompted voiding toileting program continued to be implemented by indigenous nursing aides. Random-hour wet checks taken during the 6-month management period revealed a reduction in wetness from 43% to 21% (p < .0001), which was sustained over the full 6-month period.

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Frailty and injuries in later life: the FICSIT trials.

Physical frailty and fall-related injuries present two of the biggest threats to older people's functioning and quality of life. The Frailty and Injuries: Cooperative Studies of Intervention Techniques (FICSIT) trials represent a set of eight different clinical trials concerning physical frailty and injuries in later life. This report documents the history and organization of the trials and provides an overview of the measures being collected at multiple sites and the analytic strategies to be used for multi-site investigations.

Accidental Falls↗

Development of the common data base for the FICSIT trials.

The eight FICSIT (Frailty and Injuries: Cooperative Studies of Intervention Techniques) sites test different intervention strategies in selected target groups of older adults. To compare the relative potential of these interventions to reduce frailty and fall-related injuries, all sites share certain descriptive (risk-adjustment) measures and outcome measures. This article describes the shared measures, which are referred to as the FICSIT Common Data Base (CDB). The description is divided into four sections according to the four FICSIT committees responsible for the CDB: (1) psychosocial health and demographic measures; (2) physical health measures; (3) fall-related measures; and (4) cost and cost-effectiveness measures. Because the structure of the FICSIT trial is unusual, the CDB should expedite secondary analyses of various research questions dealing with frailty and falls.

Accidental Falls↗

Risk factors that predict staff failure to release nursing home residents from restraints.

This study identifies resident characteristics related to nursing staff failure to provide consistent release from physical restraints as required by regulation. The lengths of intervals during which residents were restrained were measured and correlated with the staff's perception of degree of care burden and resident behavioural characteristics in order to identify risk factors related to the absence of consistent release. Staff perceptions of residents' verbal aggressiveness (multiple R = -.30, p < .01), physical aggressiveness (multiple R = -.25, p < .03) and unpleasantness (multiple R = -.25, p < .03) are the three characteristics most predictive of the length of time residents continuously remain restrained.

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A clinical trial of a behavioral therapy to reduce urinary incontinence in nursing homes. Outcome and implications.

One hundred thirty-three incontinent women in seven nursing homes were assigned randomly to a 13-week behavior therapy program for urinary incontinence or to a control group that received usual incontinence-related care. The therapy became effective after 6 weeks of training. By the final month of training, the treatment women's wet episodes had been reduced by 0.6 episodes per day, a 26% reduction over baseline. This reduction in the number of wet episodes was statistically significant, both with respect to this group's baseline levels of incontinence and in comparison with the performance of the control women. The number of wet episodes in the control group remained about the same throughout training and the 22-week follow-up period. The treatment women improved partly because they learned to request help, a response prompted and reinforced by the program. Trainees with a high frequency of incontinence during baseline, the more cognitively intact residents, and residents with normal bladder capacity responded better to this behavior therapy program.

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Rehabilitation: small goals, sustained interventions.

Rehabilitation to restore and maintain functioning in older people is relatively new. Traditionally, ageist prejudices and the medical preoccupation with cure have led to neglect of chronic disabilities in older people. With a focus on an aging population, however, a new approach to rehabilitation is taking shape at the confluence of geriatric and psychosocial approaches. Significant components of this emerging approach are: setting small goals as incentives for motivating the patient, the timing of the disability within the individual's life course, coping behavior and the way the disability is defined, the importance of social support to the recovery potential, and the incorporation of sustained interventions into daily routines and life-styles. This article illustrates this approach with examples from common disabling conditions, proposing that the quality of aging can be markedly enhanced for older people suffering from functional disability.

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Psychosocial factors in urinary incontinence.

This article reviews psychosocial factors involved in the development and maintenance of urinary incontinence. Four aspects of this relationship are examined: the perception of and response to urinary incontinence; the development and/or exacerbation of incontinence symptoms; the psychosocial consequences for individuals, families, and caregivers; and the role of psychosocial factors in treatment. Areas for future research are identified and clinical implications of existing findings are presented.

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The effects of family involvement and practitioner home visits on the control of hypertension.

The effectiveness of two social support strategies designed to lower hypertensive patients' blood pressure were compared to each other and to a control group (N = 63) receiving routine care in a randomized clinical trial extending over a period of two years. Group 1 (N = 99) received visits and had family members actively participate in their care through home blood pressure monitoring; Group 2 (N = 56) received home visits from nurses and pharmacists. All groups were predominantly Black. After the first year of the trial, the proportion of patients with uncontrolled diastolic blood pressure (greater than or equal to 95mm Hg) had declined significantly for all three groups; no group showed a statistically significant advantage. However, during the last six months of the second year (after visiting had ended), both Groups 1 and 2 demonstrated clear superiority in DBP control over Group 3, achieving borderline statistical significance (p = .07) when multivariable analysis was performed to control for potential confounders. Supplementing routine care with periodic home visits produced an additional 21 per cent of patients with well-controlled DBP, while involving family members plus visits produced a 17 per cent improvement in the percentage of patients with DBP less than 95mm Hg. However, neither support strategy was clearly more effective than the other over time. The efficacy of the interventions is discussed with respect to cost and feasibility of implementation.

Allied Health Personnel↗