Comparison of Frailty Screening Instruments in the Emergency Department
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Authors: O'Caoimh, Ronan; Costello, Maria; Small, Cliona; Spooner, Lynn; Flannery, Antoinette; O'Reilly, Liam; Heffernan, Laura; Mannion, Edel; Maughan, Anna; Joyce, Alma; Molloy, D. William; O'Donnell, John
Abstract
Early identification of frailty through targeted screening can facilitate the delivery of comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) and may improve outcomes for older inpatients. As several instruments are available, we aimed to investigate which is the most accurate and reliable in the Emergency Department (ED). We compared the ability of three validated, short, frailty screening instruments to identify frailty in a large University Hospital ED. Consecutive patients aged >= 70 attending ED were screened using the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), Identification of Seniors at Risk Tool (ISAR), and the Programme on Research for Integrating Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy 7 item questionnaire (PRISMA-7). An independent CGA using a battery of assessments determined each patient's frailty status. Of the 280 patients screened, complete data were available for 265, with a median age of 79 (interquartile +/- 9); 54% were female. The median CFS score was 4/9 (+/- 2), ISAR 3/6 (+/- 2), and PRISMA-7 was 3/7 (+/- 3). Based upon the CGA, 58% were frail and the most accurate instrument for separating frail from non-frail was the PRISMA-7 (AUC 0.88; 95% CI:0.83-0.93) followed by the CFS (AUC 0.83; 95% CI:0.77-0.88), and the ISAR (AUC 0.78; 95% CI:0.71-0.84). The PRISMA-7 was statistically significantly more accurate than the ISAR (p = 0.008) but not the CFS (p = 0.15). Screening for frailty in the ED with a selection of short screening instruments, but particularly the PRISMA-7, is reliable and accurate.
A 1d Up Approach to Conformal Geometric Algebra: Applications in Line Fitting and Quantum Mechanics
ADVANCES IN APPLIED CLIFFORD ALGEBRAS
Authors: Lasenby, Anthony N.
Abstract
We discuss an alternative approach to the conformal geometric algebra (CGA) in which just a single extra dimension is necessary, as compared to the two normally used. This is made possible by working in a constant curvature background space, rather than the usual Euclidean space. A possible benefit, which is explored here, is that it is possible to define cost functions for geometric object matching in computer vision that are fully covariant, in particular invariant under both rotations and translations, unlike the cost functions which have been used in CGA so far. An algorithm is given for application of this method to the problem of matching sets of lines, which replaces the standard matrix singular value decomposition, by computations wholly in Geometric Algebra terms, and which may itself be of interest in more general settings. Secondly, we consider a further perhaps surprising application of the 1d up approach, which is to the context of a recent paper by Joy Christian published by the Royal Society, which has made strong claims about Bell's Theorem in quantum mechanics, and its relation to the sphere S 7 and the exceptional group E-8, and proposed a new associative version of the division algebra normally thought to require the octonians. We show that what is being discussed by Christian is mathematically the same as our 1d up approach to 3d geometry, but that after the removal of some incorrect mathematical assertions, the results he proves in the first part of the paper, and bases the application to Bell's Theorem on, amount to no more than the statement that the combination of two rotors from the Clifford Algebra Cl(4, 0) is also a rotor.