Needs and skills of informal caregivers to care for a dependent person: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: The world is facing many socio-demographic changes, such as an increased average life expectancy and the presence of chronic and non-communicable diseases, which in turn, leads to an enhanced dependency on others. Consequently, the demand for informal caregivers has significantly increased during the past few years. Caring for a dependent person is linked to a series of burdens that often leads to physical, psychological and emotional difficulties. Taking into consideration the difficulties faced by informal caregivers, knowing in which areas of functioning they need more guidance may help to relieve their burden. Therefore, the main goal of this study is to better understand the needs and competencies of the informal caregiver when caring for a dependent person in the different self-care domains. METHODS: This cross-sectional study used a questionnaire administered on a single occasion by face-to-face interview. Descriptive and inferential statistics alongside non-parametric statistical techniques such as the Mann-Whitney test and Spearman's correlation were used. RESULTS: The average age of the 143 informal caregivers is 58 years old, with the youngest in our sample being 21 years of age. Most of them are female, and 50% of them are children taking care of one of their parents. Most of the dependent people are completely dependent in the areas of comfort and hygiene (53.8%) and medication management (55.9%). The female informal caregivers see themselves as having more competencies in sanitary hygiene than the male ones, with no significant differences in their competencies' perception in the other areas of self-care. Older caregivers see themselves as less competent in certain areas of self-care such as feeding, mobility, transfers, medication and symptoms management and communication. Most of the information given to the informal caregiver is about the disease (82.3%) and the medication management (80.4%). There are still a lot of areas of self-care, where no information, or almost none, is given to the informal caregivers. CONCLUSIONS: Before home discharge of a dependent person, it is important to acknowledge the needs and competencies of the informal caregiver, to capacitate them in looking after their relatives, to help decrease their burden and consequently, decrease the number of hospital readmissions.

Instituting a Standardized Mobility Aid in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit.

The complexity of ambulation increases when patients are challenged with acute illness in the cardiovascular intensive care unit (CVICU). The difficulties in this setting entailed limited ancillary assistance, proper equipment, and complex medical devices. It was imperative that mobility was made a priority in the CVICU despite multiple barriers. To improve mobility functionality, mobility aids were obtained. To evaluate the effectiveness of the mobility aids, data were collected, including staff surveys, time studies, and chart audits. The outcomes from implementing the mobility aids revealed a reduction in the number of staff required to ambulate medically complex patients from an average of 2.3 to 1.9 staff members and in medically noncomplex patients remained unchanged from 1.4 to 1.6 staff members. Preparation time for ambulation was reduced from 12.8 to 8.3 minutes on average for medically noncomplex patients and from 14 to 9.7 minutes for the medically complex patients. Ambulation sessions for medically noncomplex patients increased on average from 1.5 to 2.8 sessions per day and for medically complex patients decreased from 1.2 to 0.5 sessions per day. Overall, clinically significant improvements were noted with both preparation time for ambulation and the number of mobility sessions that support the use of a standardized mobility aid.

A preliminary evaluation of the PEDI-CAT Mobility item bank for children using walking aids and wheelchairs.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the discriminant validity and scoring patterns of the PEDI-CAT Mobility item bank for children who use a walking aid or wheelchair. METHODS: Parents whose children use a walking aid (n=35) or a wheelchair (n=31) completed the full PEDI-CAT Mobility item bank (105 items including 13 walking aid and 14 wheelchair items) on-line. An independent sample t-test was used to examine mean scores between the groups. Point spread and placement of the scores along the overall 20-80 test scale and response patterns for the 27 mobility device items were analyzed descriptively. RESULTS: Mean scaled scores were significantly different (p < 0.001) for the two groups. Mean score for the Wheelchair Group (38.37, SD=7.09) was lower than the Walking Aid Group (46.97, SD=5.10). The Walking Aid Group started and ended higher on the 20 to 80 scale metric than the Wheelchair Group. No floor or ceiling effects were seen for the scoring of the 27 items specifying use of a mobility device. CONCLUSION: The %scores of the PEDI-CAT Mobility domain could differentiate the functional mobility status between known groups of children who use a walking aid or wheelchair and provides specific items to measure functional mobility with use of a mobility device.

Caracterización de la movilidad de ancianos, según índice de katz, en el Centro de Bienestar del Anciano San José de Pereira. 2007 / Characterization of the mobility in the elder people, according to the katz index, at the Centro de Bienestar de Ancianos San José, Pereira 2007

Introducción: la gran mayoría de los adultos mayores presenta algún grado de limitación en su movilidad y sufre por esto las dificultades de adaptación para desplazarse;(7) este deterioro genera vulnerabilidad, que da como resultado la definición de personas frágiles con pronóstico reservado en algunos casos, los cuales incluyen discapacidad, dependencia, caídas, internación y mortalidad, en los adultos mayores.Métodos:se realizó una caracterización del grado de movilidad de los adultos mayores de acuerdo a la escala de Katz, en el Centro de Bienestar del Anciano San José de Pereira, durante el primer semestre de 2007.Resultados:se estudiaron todos (100 por ciento) los adultos mayores de 59 años residentes en el Centro. El 47.8 por ciento de los evaluados son autónomos, sin embargo, son sanos únicamente el 8 por ciento de los ancianos autónomos.Conclusión:los niveles de autonomía de los ancianos no son sinónimo de calidad de vida, por el contrario, éstos requieren de equipos multidisciplinarios liderados por enfermeras, quienes a través de su quehacer son garantía de calidad y bienestar, evitando los accidentes en el ejercicio de sus actividades diarias, y beneficiándolos con soportes nutricionales, terapéuticos y preventivos, que estos equipos están en capacidad de desarrollar...