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Abstract Background As Home-and Community-Based Services (HCBS), such as skilled nursing services or personal care services, have become increasingly available, it has become clear that older adults transit through different residential statuses over time. Older adults may transit through different residential statuses as the various services meet their needs. The purpose of this exploratory study was to better understand the interplay between community-dwelling older adults’ use of home- and community-based services and their residential transitions. Methods The study compared HCBS service-use patterns and residential transitions of 3,085 older adults from the Second Longitudinal Study of Aging. Based on older adults’ residential status at the three follow-up interviews, four residential transitions were tracked: (1) Community-Community-Community (CCC: Resided in community during the entire study period); (2) Community-Institution-Community (CIC: Resided in community at T1, had lived in an institution at some time between T1 and T2, then had returned to community by T3); (3) Community-Community-Institution (CCI: Resided in community between at T1, and betweenT1 and T2, including at T2, but had used institutional services between T2 and T3); (4) Community-Institution-Institution (CII: Resided in community at T1 but in an institution at some time between T1 and T2, and at some time between T2 and T3.). Results Older adults’ use of nondiscretionary and discretionary services differed significantly among the four groups, and the patterns of HCBS use among these groups were also different. Older adults’ use of nondiscretionary services, such as skilled nursing care, may help them to return to communities from institutions. Personal care services (PCS) and senior center services may be the key to either support elders to stay in communities longer or help elders to return to their communities from institutions. Different combinations of PCS with other services, such as senior center services or meal services, were associated with different directions in residential transition, such as CIC and CII respectively. Conclusions Older adults’ differing HCBS use patterns may be the key to explaining older adults’ transitions. Attention to older adults’ HCBS use patterns is recommended for future practice. However, this was an exploratory study and the analyses cannot establish causal relationships.

Abstract Background This study aimed to examine the longitudinal contributions of four political and socioeconomic factors to the increase in life expectancy in less developed countries (LDCs) between 1970 and 2004. Methods We collected 35 years of annual data for 119 LDCs on life expectancy at birth and on four key socioeconomic indicators: economy, measured by log10 gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity; educational environment, measured by the literacy rate of the adult population aged 15 years and over; nutritional status, measured by the proportion of undernourished people in the population; and political regime, measured by the regime score from the Polity IV database. Using linear mixed models, we analyzed the longitudinal effects of these multiple factors on life expectancy at birth with a lag of 0-10 years, adjusting for both time and regional correlations. Results The LDCs' increases in life expectancy over time were associated with all four factors. Political regime had the least influence on increased life expectancy to begin with, but became significant starting in the 3rd year and continued to increase, while the impact of the other socioeconomic factors began strong but continually decreased over time. The combined effects of these four socioeconomic and political determinants contributed 54.74% - 98.16% of the life expectancy gains throughout the lag periods of 0-10 years. Conclusions Though the effect of democratic politics on increasing life expectancy was relatively small in the short term when compared to the effects of the other socioeconomic factors, the long-term impact of democracy should not be underestimated.

The World Health Organization emphasizes the importance of providing integrated care for older people. Taiwan is the fastest aging country in the world. In 2016, Taiwan implemented the Long-Term Care Plan 2.0 (TLTCP 2.0), aimed at providing integrated long-term care (LTC) services in communities. However, LTC service agencies have not been able to evaluate the level of integrated care they provide due to the lack of an effective assessment tool. To address this need, this study sets out to develop an integration assessment tool, namely the Self-Assessment for Service Integration in Long-Term Care (SASI-LTC), which will allow LTC agencies to self-evaluate their current level of integration from multiple perspectives. The SASI-LTC was developed based on Evashwick's framework, underwent two rounds of Delphi panels with twenty-six experts, and a pilot test with 243 valid questionnaires from administrators of Tier A agencies who are responsible for integrating LTC. The Delphi experts assessed the content with high levels of agreement using medians, the scale content validity index (SCVI) and item content validity index (ICVI). The SASI-LTC included four domains (inter-entity organization and management, integrated care coordination, integrated resources, and integrated information systems) with thirty items. The SASI-LTC showed good reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.94) and good validity, and a confirmatory factor analysis showed a good model fit index [χ2/df = 1.38; RMSEA = 0.040; CFI = 0.963; SRMR = 0.049] in pilot testing. While the SASI-LTC is a useful and feasible tool for Taiwan's LTC service agencies to evaluate their level of integration in providing LTC services, it could also be used in other countries with minor adjustments to localization of items related to financial integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To explore the transcriptomic changes of adenocarcinoma at the gastroesophageal junction (ACGEJ) and identify key genes in the occurrence and progression. Methods RNA sequencing data of ACGEJ tumors and adjacent normal tissues samples from 58 patients who were recruited at the Linzhou Cancer Hospital and Linzhou Esophageal Cancer Hospital. The gene expression level of paired ACGEJ and adjacent normal tissue samples were compared to identify dysregulated genes. And the enriched pathways of these genes were analyzed by using gene set variation analysis (GSVA). LASSO regression model was used to test the association between the expression of dysregulated genes and the prognosis of ACGEJ patients, and the clinical features and prognosis associated gene set were applied to establish the nomogram model. Results Through transcriptomic profiling of tumor and non-tumor ACGEJ samples, 737 significantly differentially expression genes (DEGs) in ACGEJ were identified(｜log2FC｜＞1.2, Q＜0.05). The DEGs were related to tumor proliferation, growth, metastasis and metabolism. Among these DEGs, a total of 9 genes (ASF1B,ACTN1,KNL1,SAPCD2,TP53I11,DMBT1,CNFN,ID2,DPT) were identified to associate with the prognosis of ACGEJ patients by LASSO regression model. These 9 genes were further selected to build a prognostic model. The patients could be divided into two groups by this prognostic model, and the overall survival (OS) of the low-risk group was significantly higher than that of the high-risk group (P＜0.01). A nomogram was established which included the age, clinical stage and prognosis associated gene set for eventual clinical translation. Conclusions Several genes associated with the occurrence and progression of ACGEJ are identified. These genes may be potential treatment targets and prognostic biomarkers of this disease.

The purposes of this study were to evaluate a federal and state-funded Family Caregiver Support Program (FCSP) and explore what types of caregiver support service are associated with what caregiver outcomes. Information was obtained on a sample of 164 caregivers' use of eleven different types of support service. Descriptive and comparative analyses were used to detect the differences between users and nonusers of caregiver support services. Six measures included were caregiving appraisal scale, caregiving burden, caregiving mastery, caregiving satisfaction, hour of care, and service satisfaction. Using consulting and education services is associated with lessening of subjective burden; using financial support services is associated with more beneficial caregiver appraisal, such as better caregiver mastery. The findings are practical and helpful for future caregiver service and program development and evaluation and policy making for supporting caregivers. In addition, the evaluation method demonstrated in the study provided a simple and moderately effective method for service agencies which would like to evaluate their family caregiver support services. (Contains 3 tables.)

Aims and objectives: This systematic review and meta‐analysis aimed to compare the incidence of PVC‐related complications between catheterisation in the forearm and back of the hand in adult patients. Background: A peripheral intravenous catheter (PVC) is often inserted as part of care during patients' hospitalisation. The catheter is typically inserted in the forearm or at the back of the hand in usual practice. Studies have not yet reached a consensus on the optimal insertion site in any clinical setting. Design: We performed a systematic review and meta‐analysis based on PRISMA guidelines. Methods: We searched the following electronic databases: PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and CINAHL. Randomised controlled trials, cohort studies, case–control studies and cross‐sectional studies from inception to July 2021 reporting the incidence of PVC‐related complications at the forearm and back of the hand were included. Fixed‐effects models and random‐effects models were used to derive the pooled risk ratios. Results: Twenty‐four studies involving 16562 PVCs met our inclusion criteria. The meta‐analysis showed that compared with PVC placement in the back of the hand, placement in the forearm was associated with a higher incidence of total complications and infiltration/extravasation. However, the differences between the PVC indwelling sites were not significant (total complications: P = 0.43; phlebitis: P = 0.35; infiltration/extravasation: P = 0.51). Both incidence of total complications and infiltration/extravasation analyses showed high heterogeneity (total complications: I2 = 60%; infiltration/extravasation: I2 = 58%). Conclusion: Available evidence suggests that there is no significant difference between PVC placement in the forearm and at the back of the hand in terms of the incidence of complications, thus making both approaches suitable. Relevance to clinical practice: For patients who need indwelling PVC, medical staff can choose the best indwelling site, and both forearm and back of the hand are suitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]