As many as half of nursing home residents are cognitively impaired and may be unable to communicate symptoms such as pain or anxiety to those caring for them. Therefore, information needed for the evaluation of symptoms and subsequent treatment decisions typically does not reliably exist in nursing home electronic health records. A new paper reports on the novel adaptation of a commonly used symptom assessment instrument to more comprehensively acquire this difficult-to-obtain data with the ultimate goal of enabling knowledge-based expansion of palliative care services in nursing homes to address residents' symptoms.
Read more …Assessing pain, anxiety and other symptoms of nursing home residents unable to speak for themselves
Researchers have studied a new method to deliver antibiotics, specifically gentamicin, directly into the bladder tissue to better treat UTIs. They did this by creating nanogels combined with a special peptide (a small protein) that helps the drug get inside the cells where the bacteria are hiding. The results demonstrate that this approach proved highly effective when tested in animal models with UTIs, eliminating over 90% of the bacteria from the bladder.
Read more …Promising new research shows potential to cure recurrent urinary tract infections
Until now, doctors knew hepatic stellate cells mainly as drivers of liver fibrosis. The actual functions of this cell type have hardly been studied to date. Researchers have now determined that hepatic stellate cells control liver metabolism as well as liver regeneration and size. The results of the study could contribute to new therapeutic approaches for liver diseases.
Read more …Hepatic stellate cells control liver function and regeneration