The care needs of the elderly in China's elderly care institutions: a narrative synthesis.

China's population is ageing, affecting trends in social development and basic national conditions. More attention must be paid to the lack of care needs assessments for the elderly in China's pension institutions. This paper discusses a systematic evaluation of the care needs of the elderly in China's elderly care institutions. Literature was collected and synthesized after a search of the Web of Science, PubMed, and other databases for works published up to August 2021. Relevant content is proposed, including the name of the first author, publication date, study area, and sample size. Exactly 18 articles were included in the literature, documents that reported on a total of 7277 elderly people. The results showed a combined demand rate of primary care needs ≥50%. The top five needs included mental/psychological (76%), tranquillity/care (73%), living/environmental (71%), medical treatment (64%), and preventive healthcare (64%). The combined demand rate of secondary care needs was ≥50%. The top five needs included 79% for room/laundry/cleaning, 77% for psychological comfort and nursing, 73% for end-of-life care, 70% for disease diagnosis and treatment, and 69% for physical examination. The health needs of older people are diverse and focus mainly on mental/psychological, tranquility/care, living/environmental (71%), pharmacotherapy, and preventive healthcare.

Application of traditional Chinese medicine nursing technology: Traditional Chinese medicine ironing combined with traditional Chinese medicine massage in improving functional constipation in elderly patients.

To explore the therapeutic effect of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) nursing technology combined with TCM massage on elderly patients with functional constipation (FC). Ninety elderly patients with FC admitted to our hospital from January 2022 to February 2023 were selected and randomly divided into 3 groups. The control group was treated with conventional Western medicine, observation group 1 was treated with TCM massage on the basis of the control group, and observation group 2 was treated with medicine ironing combined with TCM massage on the basis of the control group. Compare 3 groups of TCM syndrome scores, clinical efficacy, complete spontaneous bowel movements (CSBM) per week, Bristol fecal trait scale, and safety. There was a statistically significant difference in clinical effective rates among the 3 groups (96.67%, 83.33%, 66.67%) (P < .05), and the observation group 2 was higher than the observation group 1 and higher than the control group. After treatment, the TCM syndrome scores of the 2 groups were lower than those of the observation group 1 and the control group; And observation showed that the TCM syndrome score of group 1 was lower than that of the control group (P < .05). After treatment, the increase in scores of CSBM and Bristol fecal traits in the 2 groups was higher than that in the observation group and control group, and the increase in scores of CSBM and Bristol fecal traits in the observation group was higher than that in the control group (P < .05). There was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of adverse reactions among the 3 groups (10.00%, 6.67%, 20.00%) (P > .05). The application of TCM nursing techniques such as TCM ironing and TCM massage in elderly patients with FC has a significant clinical effect, which can effectively improve clinical symptoms, defecation frequency, and fecal characteristics, and has high safety.

Positive relief of stroke patients with dysphagia under cluster nursing strategy.

For exploring the positive relief effect and application value of cluster nursing strategies on stroke patients with dysphagia in rehabilitation medicine. A retrospective analysis was conducted on 70 patients with stroke dysphagia admitted to the Rehabilitation Medicine Department of our hospital from June 2021 to November 2022; by comparison, patients were separated into intervention group (IG) and control group (CG) according to different degrees of swallowing difficulty, and nutritional nursing interventions were conducted on the selected research subjects. It was given routine care in the CG and a cluster nursing strategy in the IG, with a total intervention time of 5 months. Before intervention, general information of all patients was compared. Before and after intervention, the incidence of aspiration, nutritional biochemical indicators (hemoglobin, total serum protein, albumin, prealbumin, total cholesterol), grip strength, Swallowing Quality of Life score, etc were collected from the 2 groups of patients. Finally, the specific benefits were analyzed through statistical results to evaluate the intervention effect. After intervention, the explicit aspiration rate of the participants in this experiment significantly decreased, and the difference among the participants in this experiment was statistically significant (P < .05); the implicit aspiration rate was not statistically significant (P > .05). In the comparison of nursing expenses, the CG spent 5403.57 ± 815.51 yuan, while the IG spent 5237.10 ± 758.35 yuan. There was a statistically marked disparity among the participants in this experiment (t = 52.41, P < .001). In the comparison of hospitalization expenses, the cost of the CG was 9236.05 ± 3236.08 yuan; The cost of the IG was 9538.59 ± 4985.21 yuan, and there was a marked disparity among the participants in this experiment (P < .001). The significant statistical significance exists (P < .05) in the 5 indicators of hemoglobin, total protein, prealbumin, albumin, and total cholesterol, quality of life scores, and patient physical efficacy in both groups. The intervention study of cluster nursing strategy for stroke patients with dysphagia in rehabilitation medicine can effectively reduce the incidence of overt aspiration and ultimately improve their quality of life. It has high clinical application value.

Effect of traditional Chinese medicine external therapy for functional constipation: a meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To systematically review the effectiveness and safety of external treatment with traditional Chinese medicine in patients with functional constipation. METHODS: In this meta-analysis study, we searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) external therapy for treating functional constipation from various databases. Search time was from database establishment to May 2022. The included studies were evaluated for meta-analysis using RevMan 5.3 software. RESULTS: A total of 18 randomized controlled studies were included, including 1404 patients. Results showed the total effective rate [OR = 3.83, 95% CI (2.71, 5.43), P < 0.01] and quality of life [OR = -9.78, 95% CI (-12.32, -7.23), P < 0.01] effectively improved after TCM external therapy; constipation symptoms [OR = -1.64, 95% CI (-2.31, -0.96), P < 0.01] reduced; defecation time [OR = -0.68, 95% CI (-0.99, -0.37), P < 0.01] shortened and spontaneous complete bowel movements (SCBM) [OR = 0.48, 95% CI (0.01, 0.95), P < 0.05] increased; and recurrence rate [OR = 0.25, 95% CI (0.17, 0.38), P < 0.01] reduced. The results of a subgroup analysis of the types of TCM treatment showed acupoint catgut embedding [OR = 3.04, 95% CI (1.10, 8.41), P < 0.05], acupoint application [OR = 3.46, 95% CI (1.74, 6.89), P < 0.01], manipulation [OR = 4.26, 95% CI (0.81, 22.53), P > 0.05], the combination of two external treatment methods [OR = 7.73, 95% CI (3.00, 19.91), P < 0.01], acupuncture [OR = 3.09, 95% CI (1.21, 7.85), P < 0.05], and other external therapies [OR = 3.58, 95% CI (1.89, 6.80), P < 0.01] had certain value in treating functional constipation. CONCLUSIONS: TCM external therapy has good clinical efficacy in treating functional constipation (FC) patients, which can improve main treatment efficacy and life quality, reduce constipation symptoms, shorten defecation time and SCBM, and reduce the recurrence rate. This therapy has no adverse reaction and can be widely applied in clinical practice.