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Providers caring for both long- and short-stay nursing home residents saw improvements in rates of pressure sores over most of the last decade, according to a recent report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The percentage of short-stay nursing home residents with pressure sores fell from 22.6% in 2000 to 18.9% in 2008, according to findings from the AHRQ report.

Long-stay residents also saw improvements in the occurrence of pressure ulcers. Among that population, the rates fell from 13.9% in 2000 to 11.7% in 2008. Short-stay residents typically have higher rates of pressure ulcers than long-stay residents, because often they are admitted to a nursing home in order to help treat a pressure sore that developed in an acute-care setting, experts note.

The percentage of long-stay nursing home residents who require help with activities of daily living held steady at 16.2% between 2000 and 2008. But during that same time, the percentage of long-stay residents younger than 64 years needing help with ADLs increased from roughly 10% to 12%.

Additionally, the AHRQ report found a slight uptick in the number of potentially avoidable hospitalizations among residents who had been in a nursing home fewer than 30 days.