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open access

Investigating the Effects of Polypharmacy Among Elderly Patients with Diabetes on Glycemic Control and Clinical Outcomes in Home Health Care

Description: The focus of this research study is glycemic control in the presence of multiple morbidities and polypharmacy in homebound individuals with Type 2 diabetes aged 65 years and older. The research method is a quantitative retrospective cohort study of discharged patients of a nonprofit community-based home health agency from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2011, using OASIS data. Glycemic control is assessed using the hA1C laboratory test following the recommendation of the American Diabetes Ass… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Bernier, Shelia Alathia
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Medicare Plan D: Impact on Medication Compliance in the Elderly

Description: This dissertation examined the impact of Medicare Plan D on medication compliance in Medicare beneficiaries at University of Texas Health Center at Tyler, TX. Data were collected before and after the implementation of Plan D. The impacts of various types of benefits, such as private insurance, employer insurance and pharmacy assistance programs were evaluated in terms of impact on drug compliance. Medication compliance was found to increase in those respondents without Plan D. Plan D was found … more
Date: May 2007
Creator: Huff, Billie Kathryn
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Sex and Older Americans: Exploring the Relationship Between Frequency of Sexual Activity and Happiness

Description: The purpose of this study is two-fold: (1) to examine the correlation between frequency of sexual activity and general happiness among older Americans and (2) to examine the correlation between frequency of sexual activity and marital happiness among older married Americans. This study employed quantitative data drawn from the 2004-2008 General Social Surveys. Two samples were used. The first sample included all respondents 65 years of age and older with valid responses for the dependent, indep… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Jackson, Adrienne
Partner: UNT Libraries

Are the Needs of North Dakota's Aging Population with Developmental Disabilities Being Overlooked?

Description: North Dakota is faced with the challenge of meeting the needs of its growing population of elderly persons aging with a developmental disability. The challenge of creating new service models presents itself to professionals in the fields of Aging and Developmental Disabilities. Traditionally, the aging person with a developmental disability has been sent to nursing homes or grouped into community programs with younger persons with developmental disability. North Dakota is looking toward the fut… more
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Date: May 2002
Creator: Clark, Amy Klein
Partner: UNT Libraries

Teamwork in the Nursing Home: The Art of Caring for Long-Term Care Residents

Description: The effects of teamwork in a long-term care setting were explored, and four key elements of teamwork in the long-term care facility were discovered. These elements--clarity of purpose, clear communication, well-defined decision-making procedures, and participative leadership--are presented in detail. The literature reviewed as well as observations from personal participation in a case study show that employing the teamwork concept in a nursing home environment significantly enhances the quality… more
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Date: May 2000
Creator: Saxon, Juliane M.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Long-Term Care Administrator Licensure and Certification: An Emerging Health Profession

Description: The long-term care administrator profession is one that is both new and evolving. The unique historical perspective of this health profession is brief in the number of years it encompasses and crucial in understanding the current issues facing the profession. Administrator experiences provide a point of reference regarding the profession's structural problems. Ethical considerations play a dynamic role in administrators' daily jobs as well as their continued licensure. The significance of the p… more
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Date: May 2000
Creator: Syverson, Thomas
Partner: UNT Libraries

Resident Profile and Considerations for the Development of a Strategic Plan

Description: The graying of America will have implications for all areas of society, especially the delivery of long-term care services. Many older individuals are aging in place, a phenomenon that is apparent at Dickinson Place, a church-sponsored low-income housing property for the elderly in Dallas, Texas, where the average age of residents has risen from 65 in the early 1970s to 78 in 1999. This change has prompted the board of directors to review the facility's mission, its physical plant, and the serv… more
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Date: May 2000
Creator: Burgos, Dalila
Partner: UNT Libraries

Tuberculosis in the Nursing Home: A Policy and Procedure Manual

Description: Tuberculosis in the nursing home is an ever-growing problem for the health care community. The incidence of tuberculosis in the United States has risen alarmingly since 1982, and high-population environments such as nursing homes are among the places where it is most prevalent. The first part of this document is an introduction to the current concerns faced by nursing home infection control personnel. It includes information about the history, symptoms, and epidemiology of the disease, as well … more
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Date: May 2000
Creator: Mounts, Camilla M.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Humor and Nursing Home Residents

Description: Although humor is a generally accepted part of everyday life for humans, its existence, importance, and positive influence on older persons are often underestimated. The purposes of this study are to determine whether humor is a normal experience for nursing home residents, enhancing their activities of daily living, and whether it plays a role in contributing to their psychological well-being. The study includes a discussion of research on humor, particularly as it relates to the elderly and t… more
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Date: May 2000
Creator: Cecil, David P.
Partner: UNT Libraries

The Impact of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 on the Home Health Benefit

Description: Widespread concern about the rapid growth of Medicare spending in recent years initiated a legislative response that resulted in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. The effects of the BBA were far reaching and created shock waves throughout the health care industry. This study presents background information on the history of the Medicare home health benefit, enumerates specific provisions and goals of the BBA of 1997, examines how the BBA has changed the delivery of Medicare home health services,… more
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Date: May 2000
Creator: Coker, Joseph E.
Partner: UNT Libraries

The Meaning of Elder Abuse

Description: Elder abuse first received national attention in 1980, as the subject of a congressional investigation. Now, 20 years later, establishing successful strategies of identification, subsequent intervention, and prevention of abuse is of paramount importance; but progress toward this goal is hindered by lack of consensus as to the definition of elder abuse, and the use of vague, confusing, and sometimes contradictory terms in its discussion. In this paper, both social research and professional appr… more
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Date: May 2000
Creator: Achilli, Raye
Partner: UNT Libraries

Assisted Living: The Need for Creation of Affordable Options

Description: Assisted living, the fastest growing segment of the senior housing industry, allows individuals to remain as independent as they prefer and still receive necessary services. However, assisted living residences exist primarily to serve those seniors who can pay for the services from their own savings/income. We are facing a critical need for housing options for both the current senior generation and the soon-to-be-retired baby boomers. How will access to assisted living be opened to all types of… more
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Date: August 2000
Creator: Kretzinger, Robert W.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Disaster Preparedness: A Procedure Manual for a Nursing Home

Description: Disaster or emergency situations have the potential for serious impact on the safety and security of both residents and staff in a nursing home. Furthermore, federal and state laws require that all nursing facilities be prepared in case of an emergency or disaster. The first part of this document is an introduction and rationale for the development of a nursing home disaster plan. The second part is a procedure manual developed for a nursing home in Oklahoma, outlining emergency actions and rec… more
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Date: May 2000
Creator: Reimer, Carmen Schmidt
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Correlates of Depression in Elderly Asians in the United States

Description: The primary purpose of this study was to examine the correlation between depression and the personal characteristics of Asians who are 50 years or older. The secondary objective was to determine whether Asians 50 years or older living in the United States are more likely to be depressed than other ethnicities. The information for this study was secured from the National Health Interview Survey, spanning the years 2001 to 2010. In this study, I utilized the SAS-Callable SUDAAN statistical syst… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Kung, Kevin Hsiang-Hsing
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Culture Interrupted: Assessing the Effects of the Shining Path Internal Armed Conflict in the Peruvian Highlands

Description: This study was a qualitative examination of social, economic, political, and cultural dilemmas that face Peruvian survivors of the Communist Shining Path Revolution, an internal armed conflict that cut a swath of terror and destruction during the years 1980-2000, with a reported loss of 69,000 residents either killed or considered “disappeared.” The conflict affected primarily poor, uneducated Andean campesinos and townspeople in the highland areas of the Ayacucho District. In this study, I loo… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Van Wye, Kalynn Hicks
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Social Participation and Depression Among Elderly People in Greece

Description: The researcher had two objectives: first, explore how social involvement changes by age among Greek elderly, and second, examine the relationship between social involvement and depression by age among study participants, controlled for education, marital status, and gender. The researcher used data from the 2004 Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) database subjecting a sample of 2,898 elderly aged 50 or older to analysis in terms of the study questions. Approximately 43% o… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Simmons, Daniela
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Pets and the level of loneliness in community dwelling older adults.

Description: Loneliness is a significant problem for older adults and can lead to negative health and social outcomes. Having a companion pet is beginning to be recognized as a way loneliness can be reduced for older persons. The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine the effect of pets on the level of loneliness in persons 60 years old or older who live alone and independently in a large metropolitan community in the North Central Texas area. Using a non-random snowball sample of older individu… more
Date: December 2006
Creator: Nunnelee, Jane Baker
Partner: UNT Libraries

Empowerment: The Paradigm for Success for the Nursing Homes of the 21st Century

Description: For a workplace to be successful, it needs to have a higher morale, thus leading to higher quality of care for residents. For a workplace to be successful in empowerment, it must have developed strong teams, and everyone must work as a team and respect one another. The research for this paper focused on many issues. The most important part of my research came from a study of the nursing assistants at Jennings Hall (JH) in Garfield, Ohio. From the data received, I concluded that the two biggest … more
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Date: December 1999
Creator: Connorton, Margaret L.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Resident Care Policies in an Administrative Policy Manual for Texas Long-Term Care Facilities

Description: Federal and state regulations require that licensed long-term care facilities have policies for every resident-related topic. Long-term care administrators must plan, implement, and evaluate resident care policies that can be easily personalized to the needs of the specific facility's population. Part 1 of this paper is an overview of resident policies, covering admission, physician services, transfers and discharges, nursing services, restraints, abuse and neglect, pharmaceutical services, die… more
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Date: May 2001
Creator: Arnwine, Hilary Campbell
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Advance Directives in Texas: Advance Directives Act of 1999

Description: Growth in the number of people living to very old age and progress in health care technology are creating important new challenges for our society. Among them is modern medicine's ability to extend some people's lives beyond the point where they are capable of making decisions or expressing their needs and desires, resulting in the very complex problem of knowing when to allow a person to die. In part, advance directives were created to solve this problem. Texas has been busy developing changes… more
Date: December 2000
Creator: Watson, Robert J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Employee Satisfaction with Supervisor Support: The Case of Direct Care Workers in Nursing Homes

Description: The nursing home industry has been saturated for decades with culture change initiatives in an effort to improve resident quality of care. The direct care worker (DCW) is considered a critical position to achieving nursing facility quality improvements. Understanding what leads to job satisfaction for DCWs could result in improved resident care. The relationship DCWs have with their direct supervisor or upper-level manager can impact employee satisfaction. The purpose of this research is to ide… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Whitaker, Lisa
Partner: UNT Libraries
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