Geriatrics | Penn Today

For residents’ good, nursing homes should consider re-allowing visitors

Jason Karlawish of the Perelman School of Medicine, Allison K. Hoffman of the Law School, and a Harvard Medical School colleague advocated for a COVID-19 containment strategy that allows for long term care facility residents to receive visitors.

Elderly person lying alone in hospital bed.

Social distancing and dying alone

COVID-19 has led to drastic changes in how hospitals provide end-of-life care to patients and their families. With strict no-visiting limitations in place in an effort to stem contagion, patients have been dying alone.

Array of multiple kinds of prescription pills spilled on a surface.

Long-term use of muscle relaxants has skyrocketed since 2005

Penn Medicine researchers found the drugs were prescribed disproportionately to older adults, often concurrently with opioids, despite warnings against this dangerous combination.

Elderly person holds their hands to their face wearing a medical face mask.

Responding to challenges of older adults with COVID-19

Researchers draft a model for transitional care for an aging community transitioning from a hospital back to the community post-COVID.

Coronavirus exploited failure of Pa. health officials to improve long-standing problems with nursing home oversight

Rachel Werner of the Perelman School of Medicine said relaxing nursing home regulations during the pandemic was a matter of “balancing risks.” “The trade-off was, had they not been relaxed, other things would be worse,” she said.

U.S. nursing home population shrank roughly 10% this year

Rachel Werner of the Perelman School of Medicine and Leonard Davis Institute said Medicare’s method of reporting nursing home deaths lumps together several time periods. “It doesn’t give us a full picture of the impact of the pandemic,” she said.

Elderly person in a wheelchair sits by an open window next to their bed in a nursing home.

Can Yelp reviews identify better skilled nursing facilities?

A new study suggests that hospitals, payers, and patients might learn something useful about the quality of skilled nursing facilities by checking online Yelp reviews.

An elderly person’s hands holding a iPad.

Virtual palliative care doctors are a ‘bright spot’ in dark times

An initiative to provide virtual palliative care for nursing home patients, their families, and staff in a group of West Philadelphia nursing homes is providing comfort in the best and safest way possible during the pandemic.

Black and white images of hands of an older person holding open an empty change purse of a wallet.

Negative financial shock increases loneliness in older adults

The conclusions hold even after accounting for changes in chronic health conditions and functional limitations, religious service attendance, and relationship strain.

Empty hallway in a nursing home with an electric wheelchair and a walker by a sunlit door

Inside the pandemic’s most deadly targets: Nursing homes

The fourth in an ongoing series of LDI “Experts at Home” virtual seminars focused on how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the cracks in how we fund and staff nursing home care.

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