Short-term Effects of an Inpatient Geriatric Consultation Team on Geriatric Syndrome Patients
Depression, Senile Dementia
About this trial
This is an interventional treatment trial for Depression
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria:
(i) age 65 years or older, (ii) Barthel index (BI) [18] score ≦60 and (iii) with at least one of the following geriatric syndromes: unsteady gait or easy-to-fall ( falls ≧ 2 in last 1 year), malnutrition with Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA®-SF) screening score < 12, urinary incontinence, pressure sores, dementia, delirium, depression, polypharmacy (≧8 medications), and excessive utilization of healthcare facilities (admission≧2, visit Emergency≧2, or visit outpatient department≧12 in one month)-
Exclusion Criteria:
Patients were excluded if they were in a vegetative state, under palliative care or terminally ill and suffering from acute illness needing to be transferred to or cared for in the Intensive Care Unit.
Sites / Locations
Arms of the Study
Arm 1
Experimental
usual care
For the intervention group, a geriatric physician was consulted and recommendations were made by the geriatric consultant and inpatient geriatric consultation team after a complete geriatric assessment (CGA). The CGA includes the assessment of depression, dementia, physical performance of Activity of Daily Living (ADL) and nutrition using Geriatric Depression Scale (GDC-15), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Barthel Index (BI), and Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA®-SF) respectively. Besides the geriatric physician, our multidisciplinary team included a social worker, nutritionist and physical therapist. In the control group, the participants only received routine hospital care and no geriatric physician was consulted.