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We aimed to investigate resource use and its association to cognitive impairment, activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms in residents of Swedish nursing homes. Data was collected in 2014 from a Swedish national sample of nursing home residents (n=4 831) by proxies. The sample consists of all nursing homes in 35 of 290 randomly selected Swedish municipalities. Mean age was 85 years and 67% were women. Cognitive impairment was associated with a 23 hour per week increase in total resource use versus cognitively intact persons. This was also the case for being dependent in activities of daily living. Being dependent increased the amount of resource use by twenty-five hours per week. The sex of a resident did not influence the resource use. Cognitive impairment and functional dependency increases resource use significantly in nursing homes implying possibilities for differentiation of costs in institutional settings.

Patient safety is an important global issue. While it is well known that patients can suffer from adverse events in nursing care, there is a lack of knowledge as to how they experience them.To examine adverse events in nursing care as they are experienced by patients and relatives.This was a retrospective study taking both a qualitative and a quantitative approach. It was based on data regarding 242 adverse events in nursing care, as reported by patients and relatives to Sweden's Medical Responsibility Board, content analysis was used to analyse the reports.Patients' and relatives' experiences were analysed into four categories of adverse events, as concerning participation, clinical judgement, nursing intervention and the essentials of care.The reports were classified by the Medical Responsibility Board, without a standardized system. The adverse events reported were few in number and were reported by patients and relatives only.Lack of participation has negative consequences and contributes to adverse events. Adverse events occur through missed care as well as through carer errors.Nurses need to improve their skills that support patient participation. Patient participation needs to be incorporated into nurses' duties.Resources for patients to participate in their own care needs to be a priority underpinning policy-making in health systems. Nursing education systems need to teach students about the value and benefits of involving patients in their care.

Introduction — The aim of this paper is to describe elderly people living in different care settings in Sweden according to prevalence of dementia, ADL functions, psychiatric symptoms, behavioural symptoms and workload imposed on the staff. Material & methods — In total 842 persons living in different settings (nursing homes, homes for the aged, service houses and group-livings) has been investigated. The MDDAS scale has been used to measure motor functions, vision, hearing, speech, ADL functions, behavioural disturbances, psychiatric symptoms and workload imposed on the staff. Results — Probands cared for in different settings differ considerably as to prevalence of dementia, ADL functions, behaviour and psychiatric symptoms. Those living in nursing homes were most impaired and imposed the heaviest workload on the staff. The study has also shown that the nursing load is increasing rapidly in the homes for the aged.

This study aimed to illuminate what it is like being a child with asthma. Unstructured interviews were conducted with 14 children with asthma in Sweden. The data were analyzed using a phenomenologic hermeneutic method. The results showed that the children strived to live normal lives. Sometimes they felt that they were participants in everyday life; other times they felt like outsiders. As participants, they felt confident in their own knowledge, in other people's wish to help, and that medicine would help. As outsiders, they felt deprived, guilty, lonely, anxious, and fearful. Results were interpreted from an ecosophic as well as an existential perspective.

The gross cost of illness due to dementia was estimated to be SEK30.7 billion in 1991 while the net cost was estimated to be SEK20 billion. The sensitivity analysis showed a variation between SEK20 billion and SEK36 billion in 1991.

Two months after the opening of Sweden's first purpose-built free-standing hospice, 19 nurses were asked to narrate their reasons, expectations, hopes, and concerns about their future work as hospice nurses. The stories were analyzed using a phenomenological-hermeneutic approach inspired by the philosophy of Ricoeur. The tension between endurance and enjoyment seems to be the essential feature of the nurses' stories. The nurses who were experienced in terminal care hope and expect to enjoy being hospice nurses, provided they are able to give good terminal care, that is, nursing care that is experienced as being meaningful. Those nurses who are inexperienced in terminal care hope and expect that they will be able to give and to grow as people and to develop as professionals, but do not yet know what to make of their experiences. Possible implications of the nurses' reasons, expectations, hopes, and concerns are discussed, and an understanding of the tension between endurance and enjoyment of being a hospice nurse is presented.

Owing to the increasing number of elderly people, the prevalence of dementia will also increase. In 1990, there were about 101,000 people with moderate to severe dementia in Sweden, or 6.4 percent of the population over 65 years of age (65+ pop.). The figure will increase to about 121,000 by the year 2000 (7.7 percent of the 65+ pop.), and to 156,000 by 2025 (7.5 percent of the 65+ pop.). The corresponding health care costs, which were SEK 30 billion in 1991, are estimated to reach SEK 35 billion by 2000, and SEK 46 billion by 2025. Assuming comparable increases in the prevalence of dementia in the other Nordic countries, the overall number of dementia patients will increase from 247,000 in 1991 to 371,000 by 2025, and the respective costs from SEK 74 billion to SEK 110 billion.

The Kungsholmen Project is a study on elderly people living in a parish of Stockholm, Sweden. The study uses a longitudinal approach with the principal purpose of determining the natural history of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. The study population consists of all 2,368 inhabitants of the Kungsholmen area in Stockholm, aged 75 years and above in October, 1987. The study design consists of three phases. Phase I consists of a screening test used in order to identify the 'possible' dementia cases; phase II is a complete clinical examination carried out in order to reach a final diagnosis of dementia; in phase III the whole population is reexamined in order to ascertain new cases of dementia. DSM-IIIR criteria for dementia and different types of dementia are used. The final diagnosis is based on a consensus using two preliminary diagnoses, made separately by different physicians.

The foul smell of urine around patients with urine incontinence is thought to be due mainly to the production of ammonia from urea by bacterial ureases. The production of ammonia was thus measured by infrared spectrophotometry in control diapers and in test diapers impregnated with copper acetate (CA), after use by urine-incontinent patients with persistent bacteriuria. The CA-impregnated diapers produced significantly less ammonia than the control diapers. The CA-impregnated diapers were not bactericidal, however. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the smell reduction of the CA-impregnated diapers is due to a bacteriostatic action or an inhibition of bacterial ureases by CA.