Geriatric Trauma Screening Tool: Preinjury Functional Status Dictates Intensive Care Unit Discharge Disposition.

Older adults account for an increasing percentage of trauma patients and have worse outcomes when compared with younger populations. Simple prediction tools are needed to designate risk categories among these patients. The Geriatric Trauma Screening Tool (GTST) was developed to risk stratify older adults admitted to the ICU at a Level 1 trauma center. One hundred fifty patients aged ≥ 65 years were prospectively screened for high-risk (HR) injuries, comorbidities, and prehospital function using the GTST. Patients who screened for HR were more likely to have an unfavorable disposition than non-HR patients. HR patients had significantly longer ICU and hospital length of stays when compared with non-HR patients. In addition, patients with prior functional impairment were at higher risk for an unfavorable discharge disposition than their counterparts. Implementation of the GTST predicted discharge disposition in geriatric trauma patients admitted to the ICU. Pre-injury functional status was a better predictor of discharge disposition than either the types of HR injuries or the presence of comorbidities. Risk stratification of geriatric trauma patients allows for early engagement of patients and caregivers regarding transitions of care as well as more efficient utilization of hospital resources.

Issues in Geriatric Care: Maintaining Health and Vigor.

Medicare covers annual wellness visits that are scheduled separately from regular medical appointments. These visits focus on prevention and health maintenance to help patients achieve successful aging, which is defined as living to old age without disability while also maintaining high physical and psychological levels of functioning and social engagement. To achieve these goals, most adults should perform at least 150 min/week of moderate-intensity exercise and maintain an optimal body mass index (ie, 23 to 32 kg/m2). Healthy diets for most older adults include 1 to 1.2 g/kg/day of protein, with more for individuals with serious acute or chronic conditions. A varied vitamin-rich diet should be consumed. In the absence of deficiencies, vitamin supplements are unnecessary. Neither testosterone nor growth hormone supplementation is recommended. When patients have difficulty sleeping, physicians should assess for conditions affecting sleep and promote good sleep hygiene rather than prescribe hypnotics. Screening for depression and assessing driving safety are important. Smoking cessation and limiting alcohol ingestion to small amounts have benefits even in older age. Cancer screening should be offered only to patients with life expectancy of at least 10 years and who understand the risks and benefits.

Issues in Geriatric Care: Falls.

One in three older adults falls each year. There are approximately 2.5 million falls among older adults treated in emergency departments. Falls account for 87% of all fractures in this age group. The biggest risk factor for falling is a history of falls. Other risk factors include frailty, sedative and anticholinergic drugs, polypharmacy, and a variety of medical conditions. Current recommendations are that all patients age 65 years and older should be asked about falls each year. Patients also can be screened for fall risk with a variety of approaches including questionnaires and the Timed Up & Go test. For patients who have fallen or are at risk, care should focus on correcting reversible home environmental factors that predispose to falls, minimizing the use of drugs with sedating properties, addressing vision conditions, recommending physical exercise (including balance, strength, and gait training), and managing postural hypotension as well as foot conditions and footwear. In addition, vitamin D and calcium supplementation should be considered. For patients needing anticoagulation for medical reasons, an assessment must balance fall risk (and thus bleeding from a fall) versus the risk of discontinuing anticoagulation (eg, sustaining an embolic stroke from atrial fibrillation).

Issues in Geriatric Care: Alzheimer Disease.

Alzheimer disease (AD) occurs in 8.8% of older US adults and is the sixth leading cause of death among older adults. Medicare annual wellness visits require screening for cognitive impairment but do not specify screening methods. Numerous screening instruments are available. If results are positive, evaluation with well-validated assessment tools is needed. If cognitive impairment is confirmed, laboratory tests and imaging studies should be obtained to rule out reversible etiologies. If patients meet diagnostic criteria for AD, clinicians should educate patients and families on the expected course and help them complete advance directives. Nutrition, behavioral issues, patient safety issues, and physical activity should be addressed. Physicians should screen for and manage concomitant depression. Troublesome behaviors should be managed with nonpharmacotherapeutic measures first. Pain should be considered as a possible cause of behavior. Antipsychotics should be reserved for select cases in which safety is an issue. Drugs for improving cognition can be prescribed but these typically result in short-term improvements and do not prevent disease progression. These drugs should be discontinued if adverse effects occur or when dementia worsens. Research on anti-amyloid and anti-tau protein drugs is promising but has not yet led to useful breakthroughs.

Issues in Geriatric Care: Medical Decision-Making.

Medical decision-making capacity (DMC), which is determined by clinicians, is the ability of patients to understand information about options for their care, express a choice among those options, appreciate the benefits and risks of those options, and explain the reasoning behind their particular choice. DMC differs from competence, which is a legal concept concerning the mental ability of individuals to be responsible for their decisions and actions. A variety of instruments can be used to assess DMC. If it is determined that a patient lacks DMC, clinicians have an ethical obligation to seek out a surrogate decision-maker. Surrogates ideally should be chosen by the patient in advance. In the absence of such designated surrogates, state laws outline who can serve in this role. Clinicians should seek informed consent for treatment, except in emergency situations. A shared decision-making process is ideal. This involves sharing treatment options with patients and supporting them in making choices based on their values and preferences. The best case/worst case approach to explaining treatment options is useful for helping patients to make appropriate choices in difficult situations. Palliative care teams and family meetings also can be helpful in facilitating decision-making.

Care of Patients at the End of Life: Pharmacotherapeutic Management of Pain.

End-of-life care often involves management of pain. A patient's pain should be assessed using the Visual Analogue Scale, which uses a 0 to 10 score, with 0 indicating no pain and 10 the worst pain imaginable. Mild pain typically is managed with nonopioids (eg, acetaminophen, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). More severe pain is managed with opioids. Opioid therapy should start with an immediate-release opioid to determine the dose needed to achieve pain control. This can be used to create a regimen with an extended-release formulation for daily pain management plus an immediate-release formulation for breakthrough pain. The breakthrough dose should be 10% to 15% of the total daily dosage administered every 2 to 3 hours. If there is a need to change opioids or convert from oral to parenteral opioids, a conversion table should be used to estimate the new dosage. Patients taking opioids often experience constipation, so also prescribing a laxative (eg, senna, sorbitol) is advised. Other adverse effects of opioids mainly occur when starting or increasing the dosage. These effects include nausea, sedation, neurotoxicity, and itching, and typically resolve in several days. Adjuvant drugs (eg, antidepressants, anticonvulsants) often are added to the opioid regimen, particularly for management of neuropathic pain.

Care of Patients at the End of Life: Management of Nonpain Symptoms.

Management of nonpain symptoms can improve quality of life for patients at the end of life and their family members. Constipation is the most common nonpain symptom. It can be related to opioid therapy and/or medical conditions. After abdominal examination to detect masses or evidence of bowel obstruction and rectal examination to exclude fecal impaction, constipation should be managed with a stimulant laxative (eg, senna) or an osmotic laxative (eg, sorbitol). Dyspnea also is common, and often improves with use of a fan to blow air into the face, as well with breathing and relaxation exercises. However, many patients require titrated doses of opioids to address respiratory depression, and anxiolytics such as haloperidol may be needed to manage dyspnea-related anxiety. Oxygen typically is not effective in dyspnea management in nonhypoxemic patients at the end of life. Cough is managed with antitussives. Nausea and vomiting occur in 70% of patients in palliative care units. If no reversible etiology can be identified, dopamine antagonists and motility-enhancing drugs can be used. There are no clearly effective treatments to manage noisy respiratory secretions, but position change, decrease in fluid intake, and drugs such as scopolamine or glycopyrrolate may be effective.

Care of Patients at the End of Life: Advance Care Planning.

Advance directives are legal documents that give instructions about how to provide care when patients develop life-threatening illnesses and can no longer communicate their wishes. Two types of documents are widely used-a living will and a durable power of attorney for health care. Most states also authorize physician orders for life-sustaining treatment. Physicians should encourage patients, particularly those with severe chronic or terminal conditions, to prepare advance directives. Medicare now reimburses billing codes for advance care consultations. Directions regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation and artificial ventilation often are included in advance care plans, and use of artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH) also should be addressed, particularly for patients with advanced dementia. Evidence shows that in such patients, ANH does not prolong survival, increase comfort, or improve quality of life. Given the lack of benefit, physicians should recommend against use of ANH for patients with dementia. Finally, physicians should encourage use of hospice services by patients whose life expectancy is 6 months or less. Although Medicare and most other health care insurers cover hospice care, and despite evidence that patient and family satisfaction increase when hospice services are used, many patients do not use these services.

Care of Patients at the End of Life: Surrogate Decision Making for Incapacitated Patients.

Competence is determined by a court of law, whereas physicians determine medical decision-making capacity (DMC). When patients lack DMC, a surrogate should be identified to make decisions. Ideally, patients will have created a durable power of attorney for health care. If a patient did not do this, state statutes specify which individuals can serve as surrogates; a current spouse typically is the first choice. Ideally, surrogates should use substituted judgment in making decisions. If this is not possible because the patient never shared end-of-life wishes with the surrogate, the surrogate can make decisions that, in the surrogate's opinion, are in the patient's best interests or that a reasonable individual would make. When no surrogate can be identified and a patient has no written advance directive, hospital ethics committees can assist with decisions, or, for some patients, a court will need to appoint a guardian. When there is a surrogate, difficulties can arise when family members disagree with the surrogate's decisions or when surrogates request treatments that, in the physician's opinion, would be futile or nonbeneficial. Hospital ethics committees may be able to assist in these situations, but appropriately conducted family meetings often resolve such difficulties.

Placement of nasoenteral feeding tubes using external magnetic guidance.

BACKGROUND: Enteral feeding is preferred over parenteral methods, and feeding into the duodenum is preferred over gastric feeding in certain groups of critically ill patients. However, with current techniques, feeding tubes often coil in the stomach, exposing patients to the risk of aspiration. This study investigated whether a nasoenteral feeding tube can be guided beyond the pyloric sphincter, using external magnetic guidance. METHODS: This is a case series of 288 critically ill patients who needed placement of an enteral feeding tube, carried out in the intensive care units and wards of a university-affiliated community hospital. A 12-French polyurethane nasoduodenal feeding tube was modified by placing a small magnet in the distal tip. After inserting the tube through the nares into the esophagus, an external magnet was used to draw the tube tip beyond the pyloric sphincter and further into the duodenum or jejunum. Placement was verified by plain abdominal x-ray, and the depth of insertion (stomach, proximal duodenum, distal duodenum, or jejunum) was recorded. RESULTS: Three hundred twenty-nine intubations were performed in 288 patients (mean procedure time 15 minutes). In 293 cases (89.1%), the tube was placed beyond the pyloric sphincter. In 139 insertions (42.2%), the tube tip was in the distal portion of the duodenum or the jejunum. There were no significant complications. CONCLUSIONS: This case series demonstrates that external magnetic guidance achieves transpyloric placement of an enteral feeding tube in 89.1% of cases. This reliable bedside technique is superior to other methods described in the literature.