Background: Pain assessment is a necessary step in pain management in older people in palliative care. In older people, pain assessment can be challenging due to underreporting and atypical pain manifestations by other distressing symptoms. Anxiety, fatigue, loss of appetite, insomnia, dyspnoea, and bowel problems correlate with pain in palliative care patients. Insight into these symptoms as predictors may help to identify the underlying presence of pain. This study aimed to develop a prediction model for pain in independently living frail older people in palliative care.Methods: In this cross-sectional observational study, community-care nurses from multiple organizations across the Netherlands included eligible patients (life expectancy < 1 year, aged 65+, independently living and frail). The outcome pain and symptoms were assessed by means of the Utrecht Symptom Diary. Also, demographic and illness information, including relevant covariates age, sex and living situation, was collected. Multivariable logistic regression and minimum Akaike Information Criterion(AIC) were used for model development and Receiver Operating Characteristics(ROC)-analysis for model performance. Additionally, predicted probability of pain are given for groups differing in age and sex.Results: A total of 157 patients were included. The final model consisted of insomnia(Odds Ratio[OR]=2.13, 95% Confidence Interval[CI]=1.013-1.300), fatigue(OR=3.47, 95% CI=1.107-1.431), sex(female)(OR=3.83, 95% CI=2.111-9.806) and age(OR=-1.59, 95% CI=0.922-1.008) as predicting variables. There is an overall decreasing trend for age, older persons suffer less from pain and females have a higher probability of experiencing pain. Model performance was indicated as fair with a sensitivity of 0.74(95% CI=0.64-0.83) and a positive predictive value of 0.80(95% CI=0.70-0.88).Conclusion: Insomnia and fatigue are predicting symptoms for pain, especially in women and younger patients. The use of a symptom diary in primary care can support the identification of pain.
Background. Quality of life is an important health outcome for older persons. It predicts the adverse outcomes of institutionalization and premature death. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to determine the influence of both disability in activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) on physical and mental dimensions of quality of life. Methods. A total of 377 Dutch people aged 75 years and older completed a web-based questionnaire. This questionnaire contained the Groningen Activity Restriction Scale (GARS) for measuring ADL and IADL and the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) for measuring quality of life. The SF-12 distinguishes two dimensions of quality of life, a physical and mental dimension.
BACKGROUND: There is no widely used instrument to detect frailty in people with intellectual disabilities (IDs). We aimed to develop and validate a shorter and more practical version of a published frailty index for people with IDs.METHOD: This study was part of the longitudinal 'Healthy Ageing and Intellectual Disability' study. We included 982 people with IDs aged 50 years and over. The previously developed and validated ID-Frailty Index consisting of 51 deficits was used as the basis for the shortened version, the ID-FI Short Form. Content of the ID-FI Short Form was based on statistics and clinical and practical feasibility. We evaluated the precision and validity of the ID-FI Short Form using the internal consistency, the correlation between the ID-FI Short Form and the original ID-Frailty Index, the agreement in dividing participants in the categories non-frail, pre-frail and frail, and the association with survival.RESULTS: Seventeen deficits from the original ID-Frailty Index were selected for inclusion in the ID-FI Short Form. All deficits of the ID-FI Short Form are clinically and practically feasible to assess for caregivers and therapists supporting people with ID. We showed acceptable internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha of 0.75. The Pearson correlation between the ID-Frailty Index and the ID-FI Short Form was excellent (r = 0.94, P < 0.001). We observed a good agreement between the full and short forms in dividing the participants in the frailty categories, with a kappa statistic of 0.63. The ID-FI Short Form was associated with survival; with every 1/100 increase on the ID-FI Short Form, the mortality probability increased by 7% (hazard ratio 1.07, P < 0.001).CONCLUSION: The first validation of the ID-FI Short Form shows it to be a promising, practical tool to assess the frailty status of people with ID.
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