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Before the COVID-Vaccine—Vulnerable Elderly in Homecare

Background: At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 virus was spreading all over the world. Frail elderly were at risk for illness and death. Isolation seemed to be the best solution. The aim of this paper was to describe how the lockdown affected elderly homecare patients. Methods: We used an intern...

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Autores principales: Sørbye, Liv Wergeland, Grue, Else Vengnes, Hogeveen, Sophie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9036265/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35466247
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nursrep12020027
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author Sørbye, Liv Wergeland
Grue, Else Vengnes
Hogeveen, Sophie
author_facet Sørbye, Liv Wergeland
Grue, Else Vengnes
Hogeveen, Sophie
author_sort Sørbye, Liv Wergeland
collection PubMed
description Background: At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 virus was spreading all over the world. Frail elderly were at risk for illness and death. Isolation seemed to be the best solution. The aim of this paper was to describe how the lockdown affected elderly homecare patients. Methods: We used an international self-reported screening instrument built on well-documented risk factors adapted to COVID-19. We considered ethical, legal, and practical concerns. The research included telephone interviews with 30 homecare patients. Results: Seventy percent lived alone. Seventy-three percent of the sample suffered from major comorbidity. Cardiovascular disorder was the most frequent diagnosis. Nineteen (63.3%) needed help for personal care. Several of the participants were lonely and depressed. The homecare teams struggled to give proper care. The health authorities encouraged the population to reduce their outside physical activities to a minimum. The restrictions due to COVID-19 affected daily life and several respondents expressed uncertainties about the future. Conclusions: It is important to describe the patients’ experiences in a homecare setting at the initiation of lockdowns due to COVID-19. The isolation protected them from the virus, but they struggled with loneliness and the lack of physical contact with their loved ones. In the future, we need to understand and address the unmet needs of elderly homecare patients in lockdown.
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spelling pubmed-90362652022-04-26 Before the COVID-Vaccine—Vulnerable Elderly in Homecare Sørbye, Liv Wergeland Grue, Else Vengnes Hogeveen, Sophie Nurs Rep Article Background: At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 virus was spreading all over the world. Frail elderly were at risk for illness and death. Isolation seemed to be the best solution. The aim of this paper was to describe how the lockdown affected elderly homecare patients. Methods: We used an international self-reported screening instrument built on well-documented risk factors adapted to COVID-19. We considered ethical, legal, and practical concerns. The research included telephone interviews with 30 homecare patients. Results: Seventy percent lived alone. Seventy-three percent of the sample suffered from major comorbidity. Cardiovascular disorder was the most frequent diagnosis. Nineteen (63.3%) needed help for personal care. Several of the participants were lonely and depressed. The homecare teams struggled to give proper care. The health authorities encouraged the population to reduce their outside physical activities to a minimum. The restrictions due to COVID-19 affected daily life and several respondents expressed uncertainties about the future. Conclusions: It is important to describe the patients’ experiences in a homecare setting at the initiation of lockdowns due to COVID-19. The isolation protected them from the virus, but they struggled with loneliness and the lack of physical contact with their loved ones. In the future, we need to understand and address the unmet needs of elderly homecare patients in lockdown. MDPI 2022-04-07 /pmc/articles/PMC9036265/ /pubmed/35466247 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nursrep12020027 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sørbye, Liv Wergeland
Grue, Else Vengnes
Hogeveen, Sophie
Before the COVID-Vaccine—Vulnerable Elderly in Homecare
title Before the COVID-Vaccine—Vulnerable Elderly in Homecare
title_full Before the COVID-Vaccine—Vulnerable Elderly in Homecare
title_fullStr Before the COVID-Vaccine—Vulnerable Elderly in Homecare
title_full_unstemmed Before the COVID-Vaccine—Vulnerable Elderly in Homecare
title_short Before the COVID-Vaccine—Vulnerable Elderly in Homecare
title_sort before the covid-vaccine—vulnerable elderly in homecare
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9036265/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35466247
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nursrep12020027
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