In today's BMJ

[Guest guest]

Evidence of Intergenerational health visiting skills :

Home visits benefit elderly people

In a meta-analysis Elkan and colleagues (p 719) have found that

regular home visits to elderly

people significantly reduced mortality and admissions to long term

institutional care. Home visits

have been proposed as a strategy to enable elderly people to remain

living in their own homes. A

review recently reported in this journal, however, concluded that

preventive home visits were

largely ineffective. There is at present little understanding of what

works and why. Future studies

must attempt to unravel the factors that make a successful programme

of home visiting to older

people.

[Guest guest]

I liked June 's editorial in the same edition of the journal

(www.bmj.com). She says you don't necessarily need

research to change policy. Home visiting the elderly has

declined to almost invisible proportions (at least in Wales)

because not enough priority is given to the care of the

elderly.

From: woody@...

Date sent: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:07:48 -0000

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Subject: In today's BMJ

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Evidence of Intergenerational health visiting skills :

Home visits benefit elderly people

In a meta-analysis Elkan and colleagues (p 719) have found that

regular home visits to elderly

people significantly reduced mortality and admissions to long term

institutional care. Home visits

have been proposed as a strategy to enable elderly people to remain

living in their own homes. A

review recently reported in this journal, however, concluded that

preventive home visits were

largely ineffective. There is at present little understanding of what

works and why. Future studies

must attempt to unravel the factors that make a successful programme

of home visiting to older

people.