Project description:BackgroundPressure ulcers affect approximately 10% of people in hospitals and older people are at highest risk. A correlation between inadequate nutritional intake and the development of pressure ulcers has been suggested by several studies, but the results have been inconsistent.ObjectivesTo evaluate the effects of enteral and parenteral nutrition on the prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers.Search methodsIn March 2014, for this first update, we searched The Cochrane Wounds Group Specialised Trials Register, the Cochrane Central register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library), the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) (The Cochrane Library), the Health Technology Assessment Database (HTA) (The Cochrane Library), the Cochrane Methodology Register (The Cochrane Library), NHS Economic Evaluation Database (The Cochrane Library), Ovid Medline, Ovid Embase and EBSCO CINAHL. No date, language or publication status limits were applied.Selection criteriaRandomised controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the effects of enteral or parenteral nutrition on the prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers, which measured the incidence of new ulcers, ulcer healing or changes in pressure ulcer severity. There were no restrictions on types of patient, setting, date, publication status or language.Data collection and analysisTwo review authors independently screened for inclusion, and disagreement was resolved by discussion. Two review authors independently extracted data and assessed quality using the Cochrane Collaboration tool for assessing risk of bias.Main resultsWe included 23 RCTs, many were small (between 9 and 4023 participants, median 88) and at high risk of bias.Eleven trials compared a combination of nutritional supplements, consisting of a minimum of energy and protein in different dosages, for the prevention of pressure ulcers. A meta-analysis of eight trials (6062 participants) that compared the effects of mixed nutritional supplements with standard hospital diet found no clear evidence of an effect of supplementation on pressure ulcer development (pooled RR 0.86; 95% CI 0.73 to 1.00; P value 0.05; I(2) = 13%, random effects). This outcome is at unclear or high risk of bias.Fourteen trials evaluated the effects of nutritional supplements on the healing of existing pressure ulcers: seven trials examined mixed nutritional supplements, three the effects of proteins, two trials examined zinc, and two studies examined ascorbic acid. The included trials were heterogeneous with regard to participants, interventions, comparisons and outcomes and meta-analysis was not appropriate. There was no clear evidence of an improvement in pressure ulcer healing from the nutritional supplements evaluated in any of these individual studies.Authors' conclusionsThere is currently no clear evidence of a benefit associated with nutritional interventions for either the prevention or treatment of pressure ulcers. Further trials of high methodological quality are necessary.

Project description:Depression is a very common mood disorder, resulting in a loss of social function, reduced quality of life and increased mortality. Music interventions have been shown to be a potential alternative for depression therapy but the number of up-to-date research literature is quite limited. We present a review of original research trials which utilize music or music therapy as intervention to treat participants with depressive symptoms. Our goal was to differentiate the impact of certain therapeutic uses of music used in the various experiments. Randomized controlled study designs were preferred but also longitudinal studies were chosen to be included. 28 studies with a total number of 1,810 participants met our inclusion criteria and were finally selected. We distinguished between passive listening to music (record from a CD or live music) (79%), and active singing, playing, or improvising with instruments (46%). Within certain boundaries of variance an analysis of similar studies was attempted. Critical parameters were for example length of trial, number of sessions, participants' age, kind of music, active or passive participation and single- or group setting. In 26 studies, a statistically significant reduction in depression levels was found over time in the experimental (music intervention) group compared to a control (n = 25) or comparison group (n = 2). In particular, elderly participants showed impressive improvements when they listened to music or participated in music therapy projects. Researchers used group settings more often than individual sessions and our results indicated a slightly better outcome for those cases. Additional questionnaires about participants confidence, self-esteem or motivation, confirmed further improvements after music treatment. Consequently, the present review offers an extensive set of comparable data, observations about the range of treatment options these papers addressed, and thus might represent a valuable aid for future projects for the use of music-based interventions to improve symptoms of depression.

Project description:Background and objectivesDisparities in kidney transplantation remain; one mechanism for disparities in access to transplantation (ATT) may be patient-perceived concerns about pursuing transplantation. This study sought to characterize prevalence of patient-perceived concerns, explore interrelationships between concerns, determine patient characteristics associated with concerns, and assess the effect of concerns on ATT.Design, setting, participants, & measurementsPrevalences of 12 patient-perceived concerns about pursuing transplantation were determined among 348 adults who recently initiated dialysis, recruited from 26 free-standing dialysis centers around Baltimore, Maryland (January 2009-March 2012). Using variable reduction techniques, concerns were clustered into two categories (health-related and psychosocial) and quantified with scale scores. Associations between patient characteristics and concerns were estimated using modified Poisson regression. Associations between concerns and ATT were estimated using Cox models.ResultsThe most frequently cited patient-perceived concerns were that participants felt they were doing fine on dialysis (68.4%) and felt uncomfortable asking someone to donate a kidney (29.9%). Older age was independently associated with having high health-related (adjusted relative risk, 1.35 [95% confidence interval, 1.20 to 1.51], for every 5 years older for those ≥ 60 years) or psychosocial (1.15 [1.00 to 1.31], for every 5 years older for those aged ≥ 60 years) concerns, as was being a woman (1.72 [1.21 to 2.43] and 1.55 [1.09 to 2.20]), having less education (1.59 [1.08 to 2.35] and 1.77 [1.17 to 2.68], comparing postsecondary education to grade school or less), and having more comorbidities (1.18 [1.08 to 1.30] and 1.18 [1.07 to 1.29], per one comorbidity increase). Having never seen a nephrologist before dialysis initiation was associated with high psychosocial concerns (1.48 [1.01 to 2.18]). Those with high health-related (0.37 [0.16 to 0.87]) or psychosocial (0.47 [0.23 to 0.95]) concerns were less likely to achieve ATT (median follow-up time 2.2 years; interquartile range, 1.6-3.2).ConclusionsPatient-perceived concerns about pursuing kidney transplantation are highly prevalent, particularly among older adults and women. Reducing these concerns may help decrease disparities in ATT.

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Psychosocial interventions for preventing and treating depression in dialysis patients.

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