Diagnostic accuracy of the 6CIT was high. As the 6CIT is not sensitive to educational level, does not require advanced language skills, only takes a few minutes to administer and is very easy to use, it appears to be a suitable screening instrument for cognitive impairment in older patients in the general hospital.

Background: screening for frailty might help to prevent adverse outcomes in hospitalised older adults.Objective: to identify the most predictive and efficient screening tool for frailty.Design and setting: two consecutive observational prospective cohorts in four hospitals in the Netherlands.Subjects: patients aged ≥70 years, electively or acutely hospitalised for ≥2 days.Methods: screening instruments included in the Dutch Safety Management Programme [VeiligheidsManagementSysteem (VMS)] on four geriatric domains (ADL, falls, undernutrition and delirium) were used and the Identification of Seniors At Risk, the 6-item Cognitive Impairment Test and the Mini-Mental State Examination were assessed. Three months later, adverse outcomes including functional decline, high-healthcare demand or death were determined. Correlation and regression tree analyses were performed and predictive capacities were assessed.Results: follow-up data were available of 883 patients. All screening instruments were similarly predictive for adverse outcome (predictive power 0.58–0.66), but the percentage of positively screened patients (13–72%), sensitivity (24–89%) and specificity (35–91%) highly differed. The strongest predictive model for frailty was scoring positive on ≥3 VMS domains if aged 70–80 years; or being aged ≥80 years and scoring positive on ≥1 VMS domains. This tool classified 34% of the patients as frail with a sensitivity of 68% and a specificity of 74%. Comparable results were found in the validation cohort.Conclusions: the VMS-tool plus age (VMS+) offers an efficient instrument to identify frail hospitalised older adults at risk for adverse outcome. In clinical practice, it is important to weigh costs and benefits of screening given the rather low-predictive power of screening instruments.

The objective of this study was to evaluate psychological features in severely affected patients with complex regional pain syndrome type I-(CRPS-I) related dystonia. Personality traits, psychopathology, dissociative experiences, the number of traumatic experiences, and quality of life were studied in 46 patients. Findings were compared with two historical psychiatric control groups [54 patients with conversion disorder (CD) and 50 patients with affective disorders (AD)] and normative population data. The CRPS-I patients showed elevated scores on the measures for somatoform dissociation, traumatic experiences, general psychopathology, and lower scores on quality of life compared with general population data, but had significantly lower total scores on the measures for personality traits, recent life events, and general psychopathology compared with the CD and AD patients. Rates of early traumatic experiences were comparable with the CD and AD patients, and the level of somatoform dissociation was comparable to the CD patients, but was elevated in comparison to the AD patients. Early traumatic experiences were reported in 87% of the CRPS-I patients and were found to be moderately related to somatoform dissociative experiences, indicating that early traumatic experiences might be a predisposing, although not a necessary factor for the development of CRPS-I-related dystonia. Although the psychological profile of the patients with CRPS-I-related dystonia shows some elevations, there does not seem to be a unique disturbed psychological profile on a group level.2008 Movement Disorder Society

by involving stakeholders in designing and developing the transitional care programme, commitment of healthcare providers was secured. Feasible innovations in integrated transitional care for frail older patients after hospitalisation were sustainably implemented from within healthcare organisations.

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