Annals of Long Term Care

The chief objective of Annals of Long-Term Care: Clinical Care and Aging (ALTC) is to provide high-quality educational and informational articles to physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals serving the long-term care community. The editors look for succinct, evidence-based articles on topics relevant to this audience. Manuscripts should emphasize a geriatrics perspective and an approach applicable in the long-term care setting.

Submission

ALTC does not accept manuscripts whose content has been previously published elsewhere, in print or online. Failure to disclose the existence of duplicate articles, manuscripts, or other material is unethical and may represent a violation of copyright law.

Manuscripts should be submitted online using the Rapid Review Web-Based Review System, which is accessible at https://www.rapidreview.com/HMP2/CALogon.jsp or at www.annalsoflongtermcare.com by selecting “Submit Now” from the “Submit” dropdown menu. Authors should follow the online instructions in the Rapid Review system for uploading and formatting their manuscript and for providing supporting files.

The manuscript should not include author names, affiliations, or contact information. These are entered separately in the “Cover Letter” field of the Rapid Review system. Manuscripts that do not remove this information will require additional processing, delaying the peer-review process.

Full author financial disclosure and information regarding any potential conflicts of interest must be provided at the time of manuscript submission. Each author must sign and complete an author disclosure form, which is available on the ALTC Website under the “Submit” dropdown menu. The form may be uploaded with your submission as a scanned copy in PDF format or faxed to the attention of Allie Musante, Associate Editor, at (866) 800-4236.

Tables, figures, and photographs that reflect the general subject matter of the article are encouraged and should accompany the manuscript when first submitted. Graphics that are supplemental to the manuscript may be embedded in the document or uploaded separately in JPEG or PNG formats. All graphics should be numbered in proper sequence and should include legends.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission and paying fees to reproduce any tables, figures, or other illustrations that were originally published elsewhere; written documentation of this permission should be submitted with the manuscript.

An abstract of 100 to 175 words should be included with the manuscript. It should be factual, not descriptive, and outline the main points of the paper.

All references should be cited in full and provided in American Medical Association (AMA) style, as shown below. Please do not use an endnotes format, as this makes editing difficult. References with more than six authors listed should use “et al” after the third name. References should be cited in chronological order in the text using Arabic numerals and included in a citation list at the end of the article. Authors should try not to exceed 35 references per manuscript.

Style:

1. Smith J, Jones A, Doe J, et al. The treatment of depression in a long-term care setting. Annals of Long-Term Care: Clinical Care and Aging. 2004;10(1):22-26.

Categories

All manuscripts should be between 800 and 3000 words, not counting the abstract or references. ALTC accepts for consideration the following types of manuscripts:

Case Reports. These reports have instructional value, such as revealing successful interventions in managing uncommon syndromes or cautioning against a poor outcome of a particular treatment.

Clinical Experience. These reports should address the use of assessment and/or intervention methods in the long-term care setting that have the potential to improve quality of care or quality of life. They describe an innovative clinical strategy that is preliminary but that may be of clinical interest. The manuscript should contain a short introduction and rationale, and should summarize the results and provide evidence-based recommendations from the published literature. 

Ethics Articles. These articles focus on ethical issues and dilemmas that caregivers, patients, and their families may encounter in the long-term care setting.

Perspectives. The authors of these articles share their personal perspectives or experiences regarding an aspect of long-term care.

Photo Quiz. These manuscripts should outline an interesting or complex case  in long-term care. All articles must include high-resolution diagnostic photographs, a brief case description, a quiz question with 3 to 5 possible answers, and an evidence-based discussion on the correct diagnosis. 

Practical Research. Practical Research reports outline the results of studies conducted by the reports’ authors at their long-term care facility. These reports should have immediate practical implications. Articles discussing experimental treatments will not be considered.

Reviews. Review articles provide a thorough, critical, up-to-date overview of the existing literature on a clinical topic relevant to the care of older patients.

Special Articles. Special articles may address any topic of interest to geriatricians or long-term care professionals.

Review Process

All manuscripts submitted to ALTC for consideration are peer-reviewed by two or more referees. The corresponding author is notified of the reviewers’ decision within approximately 8 weeks of submission; however, at certain times, delays are unavoidable. During the review process, the reviewer or editor often requests the authors to revise their manuscript. The final decision on acceptance for publication can be made only after the revised version of the manuscript has been reevaluated.

Accepted manuscripts are edited according to AMA and house style. The corresponding author will receive a copyedited manuscript for review prior to publication.