Here in Pennsylvania, the ADVANCE staff is experiencing--for the third time this winter--a snow day. Huge flakes are falling, the roads are slick, and most of us are working from home. We have the option of settling in with a laptop, a notebook and a cup of coffee to take care of a day's work, without having to risk traveling in this weather. But ...

 The recruitment period of the Phase 2 Advancing Excellence in America's Nursing Homes Campaign ended at midnight January 31, 2010. The Campaign signed up. 5,860 nursing homes, including 1,132 new participants and 4,728 re-enrollees (now charter members of the Campaign), are now members of the Phase 2 Campaign, reports Carol Benner, ScM. ...

A recent UCLA study has found that volunteering, more than other productive activities, can prevent the onset of frailty in the elderly.  Frailty is a geriatric condition marked by weight loss, low physical activity and low energy and strength. UCLA researchers followed 1,072 healthy adults aged 70 to 79 between 1988 and ...

The number of felons reported in long-term care facilities in Chicago has increased by three percent from November to December, following reports of violent attacks by residents. Since 2006, state law in Illinois has required that long-term care facilities do background checks on all new residents and immediately notify state health officials ...

We all know that washing our hands is the best way to guard against the spread of germs. But there are several other measures that can also help protect us from contamination.  In this Washington Post article, health care professionals share some other tips on how they stop the spread of infection.

A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine questions whether dialysis is the best treatment for nursing home patients. As reported by USA Today, more than half of older nursing home residents die within a year of starting dialysis and ''nearly another third experience a significant decline in their ability to perform simple tasks, ...

Most people figure that work-related injuries are just part of the job for nurses. With all that lifting, turning, repositioning and transferring that nurses do, injuries abound. In fact, a report on the American Nurses Association Web site indicates that an estimated 12 percent of nurses leave the profession every year because of back injuries ...

The FDA is left to wonder what to do about acetaminophen after its panel urged it to reconsider dosing instructions, according to an article posted on the Washington Post's web site. While acetaminophen is generally safe and effective, it can cause liver failure in excess doses. In fact, acetaminophen overdoses are the leading cause of liver ...

Several of our recent blogs have been about how swine flu may be impacting your residents. If you still fear an outbreak at your facility, you may not need to panic about this just yet. The CDC recently announced that some older people have antibodies to the H1N1 virus that causes swine flu, according to an article in the Washington Post. ...

A recent report on the science of falls caught my attention on Good Morning America this week. The segment featured the research of Mark Grabiner of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Grabiner and his research team put women age 62 and older--the most at-risk group for slip and trip falls--through various slip and trip tests to study how ...