The decisional balance, attitudes, and practice behaviors, its predicting factors, and related experiences of advance care planning in Taiwanese patients with advanced cancer.

BACKGROUND: Patients with advanced cancer are prone to experience burdensome physical, psychological, and financial consequences. Healthcare providers may not fully appreciate advanced cancer patients' medical care autonomy, such as at that emboded by Advance Care Planning (ACP), and by doing so may compromise their quality of end-of-life (EOL). Hence, it is essential for healthcare providers to effectively assess and communicate with patients' regarding their medical decisions before their patients are incapacitated by their disease progression. The purpose of this investigation was to describe the decisional balance, attitudes, and practice behaviors of ACP and its predictors of ACP-related experiences in Taiwanese patients with advanced cancer. METHODS: This cross-sectional, descriptive study employed a mixed-methodsquantitative and qualitative design with a sample of 166 patients that were purposely recruited from in-patient oncology units at a regional teaching hospital in southern Taiwan. Study data consisted of patient replies to a 34-item self-report tool, Decisional Balance, Attitudes, Practice Behaviors of ACP (DAP-ACP) and 4 semi-structured questions. RESULT: Findings indicated that, in general, study participants exhibited favorable ACP-decisional balance and positive ACP-attitudes & practice behaviors. The results also indicated that gender, educational level, and cancer diagnosis were associated with significant differences on the "ACP-decisional balance" and "ACP-attitudes" scales. In addition, our findings documented that the participants' gender and educational level were significant predictors of both ACP-decisional balance and ACP-attitudes. Furthermore the participants' ACP-practice behaviors were predicted by ACP-decisional balance, but not with their ACP-attitudes. The qualitative analysis of the semi-structured questions identified six themes in responses to current medical decision making (e.g., compliance with physician instructions, family engagement in treatment decision-making); and eight themes pertaining to future ACP-related concerns were identified (e.g., family conflict, effectiveness of time-limited trials). CONCLUSION: To promote patients' engagement in ACP, the healthcare professional need to assess and advocate patients' concerns or attitudes regarding ACP in a timely manner. In addition, factors or concerns that might influence patients' responses to ACP derived from both the quantitative and qualitative findings of this current study need to be considered especially in initiating the dialogue regarding ACP with patients with advanced cancer. TRIAL REGISTRATION: No. CYCH 2,019,072, Date of registration 5 Dec 2019.

Decisive gene strategy on osteoporosis: a comprehensive whole-literature-based approach for conclusive candidate gene targets.

PURPOSE: Previous meta-analyses only examined the association between single gene polymorphisms and osteoporosis; there is no compilation of all gene loci that correlate with osteoporosis in the literature. In this study, we develop a new literature-based approach, a decisive gene strategy (DGS), to examine the sufficiency of the cumulative sample size for each gene locus and to assess whether a definite conclusion of the association between the gene locus and osteoporosis can be drawn. METHODS: The DGS was used to search PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases for all meta-analyses that correlated gene polymorphisms with osteoporosis. Trial sequential analysis was employed to examine the sufficiency of the cumulative sample size. Finally, we assessed the importance of gene loci in osteoporosis based on whether there were enough sample sizes and the heterogeneity of the literature with the I2 value. RESULTS: After excluding 169 irrelevant publications, 39 meta-analysis papers were obtained. Among Caucasians, in 17 gene loci, there were eight gene loci (e.g., vitamin D Receptor ApaI rs7975232) with sufficient cumulative sample size to confirm that they were unrelated to the disease. Among Asians, in 15 gene loci, four gene loci that had sufficient sample sizes were risk factors: VDR FokI rs2228570 (odds ratio (OR) = 1.44, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.22-1.70), TGF ß1 rs1800470 (OR = 1.35, 95% CI = 1.10-1.65), IGF1 rs2288377 (OR = 1.44, 95% CI = 1.28-1.62), and IGF1 rs35767 (OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 1.06-1.36), respectively, whereas one gene locus, ESR2 RsaI rs1256049 (OR = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.59-0.81), was a protective factor. CONCLUSIONS: The DGS successfully identified five gene loci in osteoporosis that will apply to other diseases to find causal genes, which may contribute to further genetic therapy.

The Immediate and Long-Term Impact of Military Aircraft Noise on Hearing: A Cross-Sectional Comparison of Fighter Pilots and Ground Staff.

We examined the immediate and long-term impacts of military aircraft noise exposure on noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) in fighter pilots and ground staff. We recruited 40 pilots, 40 ground staff, and 136 age-matched controls; all participants underwent hearing tests, including conventional pure-tone audiometry (PTA) (0.25-8.0 kHz), extended high-frequency (EHF) audiometry (9.0-18.0 kHz), and distortion-product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) as a recent reference. A subsequent hearing test immediately after flight-mission noise exposure was requested. The results revealed higher recent hearing thresholds in pilots and ground staff than in controls. Threshold shifts at many octave band frequencies were also significantly elevated in ground staff. The grouped frequency threshold was significantly elevated in the 4-8 kHz high-frequency range. After a single flight-mission noise exposure, both ground staff and pilots showed decreased signal-to-noise ratios for DPOAE (1-8 kHz), whereas only ground staff showed significantly elevated left-ear hearing thresholds at 3, 11.2, and 12.5 kHz by conventional and EHF PTA. Fighter pilots and ground staff serve in hazardous noise-exposed environments that cause hearing damage and subsequent NIHL, but ground staff may be more vulnerable. A comprehensive hearing conservation program should be implemented to protect high-risk service members, and especially ground staff, from high-intensity noise exposure.

Association between palliative care and life-sustaining treatments for patients with dementia: A nationwide 5-year cohort study.

BACKGROUND: The association between palliative care and life-sustaining treatments for patients with dementia is unclear in Asian countries. AIM: To analyse the use of palliative care and its association with aggressive treatments based on Taiwanese national data. DESIGN: A matched cohort study was conducted. The association between intervention and outcome was evaluated using conditional logistic regression analyses. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: The source population comprised 239,633 patients with dementia diagnosed between 2002 and 2013. We selected patients who received palliative care between 2009 and 2013 (the treatment cohort; N = 1996) and assembled a comparative cohort ( N = 3992) through 1:2 matching for confounding factors. RESULTS: After 2009, palliative care was provided to 3928 (1.64%) patients of the dementia population. The odds ratio for undergoing life-sustaining treatments in the treatment cohort versus the comparative cohort was <1 for most treatments (e.g. 0.41 for mechanical ventilation (95% confidence interval: 0.35-0.48)). The odds ratio was >1 for some treatments (e.g. 1.73 for tube feeding (95% confidence interval: 1.54-1.95)). Palliative care was more consistently associated with fewer life-sustaining treatments for those with cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Palliative care is related to reduced life-sustaining treatments for patients with dementia. However, except in the case of tube feeding, which tended to be provided alongside palliative care regardless of cancer status, having cancer possibly had itself a protective effect against the use of life-sustaining treatments. Modifying the eligibility criteria for palliative care in dementia, improving awareness on the terminal nature of dementia and facilitating advance planning for dementia patients may be priorities for health policies.

Comparison of healthcare utilization and life-sustaining interventions between elderly patients with dementia and those with cancer near the end of life: A nationwide, population-based study in Taiwan.

AIM: Little is known about the pattern of healthcare services for end-of-life patients with dementia (PwD) in East Asia. We compared this pattern between PwD and cancer patients in their last year of life in Taiwan. METHODS: Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database was applied for this case-control analysis. The records of patients who had dementia and died between 2002 and 2011 were reviewed. The control group was decedents with cancer. The utilization of hospitalization, emergency department visits and life-sustaining interventions during the last year of life between the two groups were compared. RESULTS: Of the 2724 patients enrolled, 908 had dementia and 1816 had cancer. PwD were more likely to have a higher frequency of admission to hospital and intensive care unit, and longer stays compared with cancer patients. PwD had a higher risk of enteral tube insertion and feeding, endotracheal intubation and tracheostomy, mechanical ventilation, hemodialysis and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (OR 4.36, 95% CI 3.51-5.41), which was the highest among the selected procedures. CONCLUSIONS: PwD in their last year of life in Taiwan underwent aggressive interventions significantly more frequently than did their counterparts in Western countries. Providing comfort-centered care for better quality of life for end-of-life PwD is a priority of Taiwan's national health policy. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2017; 17: 2545-2551.