Acute agitation and aggression create safety risks for both patients and staff, often leading to psychiatric emergencies. Quick and appropriate treatment is necessary to achieve safe and effective outcomes. Unfortunately, there are several factors that hinder timely interventions, such as medication shortages and delay in staff preparedness. Ultimately, the goal of managing acute agitation and aggression in the clinical setting is to de-escalate the situation and prevent harm to patients and staff. This article will explore useful interventions in realizing treatment goals for the management of agitation and aggression in adults while navigating limitations faced in practice.
Background: Entering the hospital via an emergency department (ED) is a pivotal moment in the life of people with dementia (PwD) and often starts an avoidable downward spiral. Therefore, it is required to further educate ED staff to raise awareness of the needs of PwD. Although there are many studies about existing dementia training programs for the hospital setting, empirical evidence for the ED setting and cross-level training evaluations are lacking. Objective: The study aims to evaluate a two-day dementia training course for ED staff on the outcome levels of learning, individual performance, and organizational performance. Furthermore, the study examines whether the training fulfilled participants’ expectations. Methods: Mixed methods were used to assess data from head nurses, nursing, and administrative staff working in EDs. We conducted semi-structured interviews three weeks before (N = 18) and eight months after (N = 9) the training. Questionnaire data were assessed before the training, three months, and six months after the training (N = 44). A qualitative content analysis was conducted to analyze qualitative data; quantitative data was described descriptively. Results: The intervention seems to be effective on both learning and individual performance levels. However, we did not observe any changes in the organizational performance. The training program met attendees’ expectations only partly. The working environment of EDs needs to be taken more into account. Conclusion: Hospital staffs’ expectations of a dementia training program depend on the work area in which they operate. Results support the implementation of intervention bundles to enable sustainable cross-level changes.
Children who require a marrow transplant may receive such hematopoietic cells from one of many sources. This study reviews the experience of one center with 58 children who received marrow from unrelated donors over a 10-year period. These children had a variety of malignant and non-malignant diseases. During that time period, only three of these children had failed to meet engraftment criteria. All donor marrow specimens were T-lymphocyte-depleted using an antibody/complement methodology. No difference was demonstrated in outcome between donors who were perfectly HLA-DR DNA matched versus those who were only partially matched. The increased size of various marrow donor registries has increased the number of potential donors available for these patients. The lack of a requirement for perfect matching means that there is an ever-increasing number of donors available. No graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) or grade III-IV GvHD was associated with a poorer outcome. Stable, long-term engraftment with minimal morbidity has been demonstrated in these children as evidenced by stability of survival curves by two years after marrow transplant.
Demand for renal replacement therapy (dialysis and transplantation) is projected to rise by approximately 5% every year until at least 2030. Therefore, particular attention should be paid to areas in which significant increases in demand are likely to lead to further pressure on services. There is evidence to support higher patient survival rates in home haemodialysis compared with those that receive hospital- or satellite-based haemodialysis (i.e. a smaller renal unit based in a community hospital closer to the patient's home). Furthermore, studies suggest that home haemodialysis is at least as effective as and less costly than hospital or satellite unit haemodialysis. Therefore, there is a greater requirement for expanding the provision of home haemodialysis, and to make this treatment option available to a wider range of patients.
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