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Long-Term Care Survey Alert

MDS & CLINICAL NEWS

Published on Sat Jun 20, 2009

Ready for a new set of RUGs? The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published its proposed PPS SNF rule in the Federal Register on May 12. The proposal seeks to enact a RUG-III casemix recalibration for FY 2010, and unveils a revamped RUG-IV for FY 2011. CMS also posted a revised MDS 3.0 data set on its Web site. The RUG-IV system, which incorporates CMS' Staff Time and Resource Intensity Verification (STRIVE) findings, has 66 RUGs,compared to the 53 RUGs in place now. Rehab plus extensive services, rehab, extensive services, special care and clinically complex are still in the lineup. But special care now has a low and high. Extensive services would only include vents/respirators, tracheostomy care, and isolation for active infection provided in the facility. E-mail the editor at www.KarenL@Eliresearch.com for a free copy of an Eli article that highlights key changes in the rule and MDS 3.0 draft.

Looking to help fall-proof people with Parkinson's disease?

Try directing their attention to the external effects of their movements rather than on their own body movements. That's the key finding of a study at the University of Nevada's Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences.

Researchers there had 14 people diagnosed with idiopathic Parkinson's disease to balance on an unstable surface (an inflated rubber disk). They then instructed them to focus on reducing movements of their feet (internal focus) or the disk (external focus). The control group did not receive attentional focus instructions (Wulf, G et al.Phys Ther. 2009 Feb;89(2):162-8).

Subjects asked to take an external focus experienced less postural sway. By contrast,those with the internal focus were no different than those in the control group. Read the study abstract at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19074619.

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