Gerontological educational interventions for student nurses: a systematic review of qualitative findings.

OBJECTIVES: This systematic review of qualitative studies explored interventions to improve student nurses' knowledge, attitudes or willingness to work with older people. Student nurses are likely to encounter older people in all health and aged care settings, however, research demonstrates that few have career aspirations in gerontological nursing. METHODS: Qualitative systematic review method based on the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. RESULTS: Search of Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, EBSCOhost and Scopus yielded 1841 articles which were screened to include primary research about educational interventions to improve student nurses' knowledge, attitudes and/or willingness to work with older people. Data extraction was performed on the 14 included studies, and data were analysed using directed content analysis. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) was used the assess the quality of the studies. CONCLUSIONS: Educational interventions included theory or practice courses, or a combination of theory and practice. While most interventions changed nursing students' negative attitudes towards older people, few increased their willingness to work with them. Practice courses had the most significant impact on willingness to work with older people. Quality assessment revealed methodical limitations. More research is needed to better understand the elements of practice interventions that enhance student nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and willingness to work with older people, so that they can be replicated.

[Samii: a robotic mediation application to improve geriatric care]. / Samii : une application de médiation robotique pour améliorer les soins gériatriques.

The emergence of social robots in gerontology has introduced new playful and reassuring media into nursing homes and geriatric wards. Despite promising results, their complexity hinders their widespread adoption. The Intelligent Interactive Care System aims to remedy these limitations by offering interactive therapeutic workshops. This study evaluates residents' involvement in these workshops within an adapted activity and care center, revealing a high level of involvement and satisfaction.

[Setting up a training program in a geriatric short-stay department]. / Mise en place d'un programme de formations au sein d'un service de court séjour gériatrique.

As the department's team had been renewed in less than two years, it was necessary to invent a method to improve cohesion and communication, and to enhance the skills of professionals. This led to the creation of a training program using a variety of methods (theoretical training, care approaches and quality coffees).

[Frailty assessment in geriatric oncology.]

A review of the use of comprehensive geriatric assessment and its components in oncology is introduced. The evidence base for the increasing incidence of cancer in the elderly worldwide also presented. The management of older adults with cancer is challenging. Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) has been shown by many authors to be a strong predictor of adverse events in geriatric oncology patients. CGA is recommended in oncology practice for many reasons: to identify health problems not usually detected in routine oncologic screening, to perform non-oncologic interventions, and to modify the cancer treatment plan. Comprehensive geriatric assessment is the gold standard in geriatric oncology for identifying patients at high risk for adverse outcomes and optimizing cancer treatment and overall management. Nevertheless, it can be stated that the final point in the search for evidence-based and effective frailty assessment tools in the practice of geriatric oncology has not yet been reached. It is concluded that the development of new scales and index scores, as well as the application of the CGA model in general, can provide adequate care for elderly cancer patients.

[Geriatric syndromes: the importance of the problem, controversial issues of terminology.]

The foundation of healthy aging is the prevention of disability. In modern medical usage, a syndrome refers to a collection of symptoms and signs with a single underlying cause that may not yet be known. Geriatric syndromes, on the other hand, refer to multifactorial health conditions and occur when the accumulated effects of impairments in multiple systems make an older person vulnerable to situational changes. The use of the term "syndrome" in geriatrics emphasizes the multiple causes of a single manifestation involving an abundance of factors involving multiple organs and systems and is characterized by unique features of common health problems in older adults. It is the geriatric syndromes that can have a significant impact on quality of life and disability. Therefore, early detection of these medical conditions using targeted geriatric assessment is essential in geriatrics. Understanding the essence and feminology of geriatric syndromes, their correct positioning and interpretation is an extremely urgent problem. The main purpose of the presented review is precisely to try to answer these questions. In addition, it has not yet been determined whether geriatric syndromes should be included in the diagnosis (the only exception is sarcopenia syndrome, which was officially included in the 10th International Classification of Diseases in 2016).

Relationship between the characteristics of Japanese physicians involved in medical care for older adults and their approaches to treating older patients with multimorbidity.

One countermeasure against the increasing prevalence of multimorbidity is the need to provide clinical education and training that considers the characteristics of physicians. We conducted a questionnaire survey to determine the relationship between physicians' characteristics and their approach to treating older patients with multimorbidity. A total of 3300 geriatric specialists and primary care specialists in Japan were enrolled. A 4-point Likert scale was used to score the following items: difficult diseases (43 items), difficult patient backgrounds (14 items), important clinical factors (32 items), and important clinical management (32 items). Exploratory factor analysis was performed to examine the constructs in each of the scales Diseases, Backgrounds, Clinical Factors, and Clinical Management, and group comparisons by physician characteristics were conducted. A total of 778 respondents were included in the analysis. Six factors for Diseases, two factors for Patient Background, four factors for Clinical Factors, and two factors for Clinical Management were explored as patterns. Group comparison between mean scores for each factor and the characteristics of responding physicians showed statistically significant differences in at least one factor for all patterns in terms of years of experience as a physician (26 years or less, 27 years or more), the clinical setting (providing or not providing home medical care), and sex (male or female). Our results suggest a need for clinical education and training that takes into account not only physicians' experience and clinical setting, but also their sex.

Inquiring into conditions for engaging in narrative relations on a geriatric ward - how interpretation matters in everyday practices.

Drawing on data from ethnographic fieldwork and interprofessional focus group discussions, this study enquires into staff's everyday life on a geriatric ward to explore and understand conditions for engaging in narrative relations in in-patient geriatric care. Avoiding individualistic understandings of narrative practices, we applied a narrative-in-action methodology built on a relational understanding of narrativity, where individual narratives are not separated from social and cultural features. This helped us explore how individual interpretations of the conditions for everyday practices come together with broader social or cultural understandings to gain situated insights about how these are continuously related and reformed by one another in everyday situations of geriatric care. The findings offer insights into the opportunities to engage in narrative relations based on how healthcare staff on a geriatric ward interpret conditions for their practices, and how they act based on such interpretations. While some interpretations were associated with attitudes and activities encouraging narrative relations, others simultaneously thwarted narrative relations by enacting task-orientation, division, or a focus on measurable biomedical or function-related outcomes. Moreover, the findings suggest and discuss consequences of the tensions created as interpretations are enacted in everyday healthcare situations, thus questioning assumptions about conditions as something static and linear.

Geroscience: just another name or is there more to it?

The widespread use of the name 'geroscience' in the science of aging is sometimes met with a wary attitude by biogerontologists other than its inventors. Here, we provide an overview of its origin and evolution to assess what exactly it is and to discuss its theoretical and biological relationship to earlier movements of anti-aging medicine and biogerontology more generally. Geroscience posits that targeting aging may offer a cost-effective approach to improve late-life health in humans, and because aging is malleable in model organisms and what regulates this is sufficiently understood, the time is ripe for moving forward to translational and clinical research. The geroscience agenda has rebranded imagery of past traditions, yet the claim that therapies for human aging are ready or within the imminent future is contestable and on brand with tradition, even if biogerontology has made great progress in the past decades.

Advancing Tissue Damage Repair in Geriatric Diseases: Prospects of Combining Stem Cell-Derived Exosomes with Hydrogels.

Geriatric diseases are a group of diseases with unique characteristics related to senility. With the rising trend of global aging, senile diseases now mainly include endocrine, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, skeletal, and muscular diseases and cancer. Compared with younger populations, the structure and function of various cells, tissues and organs in the body of the elderly undergo a decline as they age, rendering them more susceptible to external factors and diseases, leading to serious tissue damage. Tissue damage presents a significant obstacle to the overall health and well-being of older adults, exerting a profound impact on their quality of life. Moreover, this phenomenon places an immense burden on families, society, and the healthcare system.In recent years, stem cell-derived exosomes have become a hot topic in tissue repair research. The combination of these exosomes with biomaterials allows for the preservation of their biological activity, leading to a significant improvement in their therapeutic efficacy. Among the numerous biomaterial options available, hydrogels stand out as promising candidates for loading exosomes, owing to their exceptional properties. Due to the lack of a comprehensive review on the subject matter, this review comprehensively summarizes the application and progress of combining stem cell-derived exosomes and hydrogels in promoting tissue damage repair in geriatric diseases. In addition, the challenges encountered in the field and potential prospects are presented for future advancements.

[Practical Implementation of Gerontechnology Smart Products: Product Suitability Assessment].

Because of the critical importance to national healthcare of developing and applying smart technologies to address the needs of Taiwan's rapidly aging society, "gerontechnology" is an industry sector that must be promoted to achieve related policy goals. The scope of technologies involved in gerontechnology is broad, with the application of smart technology often the focus of industrial development. The most crucial feature of gerontechnology-related "smart" products is the collection, analysis, and feedback of target data in the application process necessary to facilitate the provision of "precision" aged care. The application of smart technology to meet the rapidly increasing life and care needs of older adults in aging societies is increasingly valued worldwide. However, the practical implementation of smart technology in aged care is still not widespread, and thus represents an urgent problem to be solved. There are many aspects to consider in the practical application of gerontechnology, among which caregivers are the key to practical application, with product suitability being the first concern of caregivers. In this article, a process is proposed to allow caregivers to assess the suitability of gerontechnology smart products in terms of "data sensing and transmission," "indicator identification and analysis," "event prediction and feedback," and "intervention measures." Based on the World Health Organization's concept of implementing research in healthcare, decision-making evaluation indicators for product selection and a product suitability questionnaire for institutional care are proposed with the goal of providing a practical tool for care institutions to assess the suitability of gerontechnology smart products.