Presents model for interdisciplinary discharge planning team, with emphasis on functional status and improved coordination and continuity among providers. Describes design and implementation of such a program at university hospital. Explains how model resulted in more patients being discussed and served, with more emphasis on the functional…

Studied effectiveness of intervention to help frail elders to record advance directives (ADs). In collaboration with physicians and lay volunteer, social worker provided information/counseling to elderly subjects, families, and proxies in series of visits to geriatric evaluation and management clinic. Seventy-one percent of subjects recorded ADs.…

To investigate empirical assumptions about substituted judgment, 3 treatment decision scenarios were presented to 43 competent elderly persons and 115 persons related to them. Related subjects who were explicitly asked to make substituted judgment came significantly closer to elderly person's preferences than those who were asked to make their…

Extended study of social network analysis and labeling theories into residential care homes (RCHs). Findings suggest that, when members of intense social networks decide to move elderly persons into RCHs, placement is needed and that, although likelihood of returning home from RCHs is affected by sociocultural characteristics, functional and…

Shows how present emphasis on patient autonomy overlooks ways in which intimate relations enable autonomy to function meaningfully and how traditional categories of competent and incompetent discount intimacy as tool for accessing patients' subjective experiences. Urges intimate associations to mark moral boundaries for autonomy because they…

Conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 40 francophone Quebecois family caregivers of frail elderly or mentally ill relatives and focused on caregiving relationship rather than on specificities of aging and mental illness. Fourteen factors emerged from analysis of informants' accounts of how they came to be primary caregiver. (Author/NB)

Examined knowledge, attitudes, and opinions of 60 older adults about cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Most had little or no accurate knowledge of CPR. Knowledge deficits and misconceptions of older adults should be addressed so that they may become informed and active participants in CPR decision-making process. (BF)

Interviewed 179 caregivers of hospitalized patients and studied discharge decisions to examine factors associated with willingness to continue in caregiving role after hospitalization of relative with dementia. Caregivers initially undecided about discharge plans were likely to seek placement for patients with more severe cognitive impairment,…