Research round-up

In this story:

• Reduce skin tears by 50 per cent with twice-daily moisturiser application
• Volunteers wanted for vaccine study
• The benefits of working after 60
• Mature workers survey

Reduce skin tears by 50 per cent with twice-daily moisturiser application

Moisturising twice a day reduces skin tears by half in older people at a cost of 91 cents per day, according to the findings of research launched at Parliament House in Canberra this week.

The randomised controlled study was carried out by Wound Management Innovation Cooperative Research Centre (WMI CRC) in Western Australia in conjunction with Curtin University and Silver Chain and involved residents in 980 beds from 14 aged care facilities in Western Australia.

The study found 50 per cent fewer skin tears among residents who had standardised pH neutral, perfume free moisturiser applied twice a day to their arms and legs. It cost 91 cents per day in moisturiser and nursing time to apply the treatment to residents living in aged care, the research found.

Translating these findings into aged care facilities and the community has the potential for significant impact amongst ageing Australians including improved quality of life, reduced incidence of chronic wounds and lower costs, said Professor Keryln Carville, an expert in wound care and professor of primary healthcare and community nursing at Curtin University and Silver Chain.

Wound care facts:

• Wound care costs $3 billion a year in Australia
• It cost $2.8 billion to treat chronic wounds in hospital and residential aged care in 2010-2011
• 430,000 Australians are currently affected by chronic wounds
• It costs $10,000 per patient per year to treat chronic wounds in Australia

Contact Dr Ian Griffiths at WMI CRC on 07 3138 4882 or visit woundcrc.com for more information.

Volunteers wanted for vaccine study

Australian volunteers aged 50 years or older are wanted for a global clinical trial evaluating whether an investigational vaccine for Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) can prevent a future infection occurring, vaccine developer Sanofi Pasteur announced recently.

CDI is a leading cause of life-threatening, healthcare-associated infections worldwide and the risk of getting it increases with age, antibiotic treatment and duration of hospitalisation or length of stay in nursing homes, where multiple cases can lead to outbreaks, Sanofi reports.

The randomised trial, known as CDiffense, will include up to 15,000 adults at 200 sites across 17 countries, including 150 volunteers from Australia in six test sites. Eligible participants must be aged over 50 and planning an upcoming hospitalisation, or have had at least two hospital stays and received systemic antibiotics in the past year.

Australian test sites are in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Cairns, Adelaide and Perth. Healthcare professionals are being encouraged to identify potentially eligible patients to take part in the trial. Visit www.Cdiffense.org or email vaccinehelp@sanofi.com for more information.

The benefits of working after 60

People aged 60 and over have better retirement savings if they remain in work even if they have a chronic health condition, according to a report from the National Seniors Productive Ageing Centre.

A widening gap: The financial benefits of delaying retirement looked at the relationship between work and wealth accumulation for people aged between 61 and 65 in 2006 and compared it with their financial situations four years later.

It found that workers aged 61 – 65 in 2006 had on average 1.6 times the wealth of those not working, but with twice as much debt. Four years later, it found that those still working in 2010 had on average 1.8 times the household net worth of people not working between 2006 and 2010.

The report also looked at the relationship between work and wealth accumulation for people aged 61 – 65 in 2006 with a chronic health condition.

It similarly found that workers in 2006 had more financial and non-financial assets than those not working, but again with more debt. The report also found that people with a chronic health condition that remained working until 2010 had more than four times the median value of financial assets than those not working in 2006 and 2010.

For this reason, the authors said it was important to the long-term financial wellbeing of people with a chronic health condition to make workplaces more accessible.

Mature workers survey

Mature workers don’t feel valued by their employer and older job seekers are not optimistic about getting a job in 2014 but their use of social media in the hunt for one has increased, according to the results of the 2013 annual survey into mature worker experiences.

The report, Australia’s Mature Workforce, from social recruitment agency Ellis Jones and Adage, a job site for older workers, contains the results of a survey of more than 1093 Australian men and women, 1070 of whom were aged over 45.

According to the results, 9 per cent of respondents said employers encouraged older workers to apply for roles within their organisation. And while 27 per cent of people surveyed had looked for a job for over 24 months, 75 per cent of jobseekers were unsure or had no confidence about finding employment in 2014, it found.

However, the survey found that while the numbers of older jobseekers using social media to find a job was relatively low, more people were using LinkedIn for that purpose in 2013 (39 per cent) than in 2012 (27 per cent). Similarly, more respondents used Facebook to find a job in 2013 (9 per cent) than in 2012 (4 per cent), the survey found.

Other key findings:

• 61 per cent of respondents said financial gain was the single motivating driver to find work
• 70 per cent of people surveyed had not discussed retirement plans with their employer
• 46 per cent of respondents were unemployed but less than a third received unemployment benefits
• 39 per cent of respondents said they experienced flexible work times
• 27 per cent of those surveyed were looking for a job for longer than 24 months in 2013 compared to 19 per cent in 2012.