Elderly_groups_at_risk

Falls among adults aged 65 years and older are a severe public health problem. To aid healthcare professionals in providing targeted fall preventive advice VeiligheidNL developed ‘de Valanalyse’. This is a multifactorial fall risk screening and assessment tool. This paper-based tool is designed to aid healthcare professionals (1) identify increased fall risk; (2) assess for […]

Among senior citizens (65+), falls are the leading cause of injuries. Medication is a major risk factor for falls. General Practitioners (GPs) struggle with fall-related medication management for older patients, as they lack tools to assess individualized risks. Furthermore, older patients themselves are not properly equipped to engage in the joint management of their medication. […]

For adults aged 65 years and older, falls are the leading cause of injury-related mortality and hospitalization. Two risk factors for injurious falls are 1) having experienced a previous fall, which stresses the need to prevent and reduce falls; and 2) the use of certain fall-risk-increasing-drugs (FRIDs). Physicians find FRID withdrawal in older adults often […]

Ideally, conversational agents should be able to adapt to human users. However, state-of-the-art AI systems currently lack sophisticated adaptation capabilities. Our long-term goal is to develop artificial agents that can adapt to individuals/user groups at any level (age, expertise, language style, etc.) and that are perceived as trustable by users. The current project focuses on […]

This project focuses on how online information should be presented to older cancer patients. In a randomised controlled trial, we investigate the effects of exposure to a website that is tailored to colorectal cancer patients’ mode preferences (offering choices between text only, text with illustrations, video or a combination of these modes) as compared to […]

Good information about a cancer treatment such as chemotherapy, has positive effects on health. Adequate patient education takes different aspects that influence positive health outcomes into consideration. Knowledge, perception of side effects, information and communication needs and the use of information sources play a role in effective patient education. This study is designed to assess […]

The PhD project focuses on communication about and with older (≥70 years) cancer patients. This project focuses on how web-based tools can facilitate (1) communication among healthcare providers to discuss optimal treatment plans for their patients and (2) how to increase the likelihood that health messages will be understood and processed by older cancer patients […]

Providing information to patients is crucial within cancer care. As the Internet is becoming an increasingly valuable source of information, it is important to consider the rapidly aging population when designing online cancer materials. Yet, the lack of studies and inconsistent findings on how to optimally present online information to older populations call for theory- […]

Decision support tools in oncology aim to facilitate decisions of cancer patients, such as treatment decisions -including no-treatment options- and provider choice. While these tools have been successful in improving the quality of patient decision making, they have not considered the needs of an ageing population. Information processing and decision making by older adults are […]

In the Netherlands 230.000 people have dementia and this figure will raise in the future up to half a million and more by 2050. A significant proportion of these people will receive care in long-term care institutions. Person-centred care and improvement of communication between caregivers and people with dementia receives an increased attention in the […]

Older persons with multiple chronic conditions (MCC) face many health-related decisions, for example regarding diagnostic procedures, medication use or invasive treatment. For professionals the care for older persons with MCC is challenging; they experience the limitations of single disease focused guidelines, that do not take into account the complexity of MCC and are sometimes contradictory. […]

More than 40% of all cancer patients in the Netherlands is older than 70 years. Cancer treatment in elderly requires special attention due to, highly prevalent additional health problems (eg regarding hearing, memory, co-morbidity). These problems can complicate the treatment and the education about the treatment. In addition, older patients express their needs and preferences […]