Recurrence

Recurrence is a Mesh, but you'll get more results if you search for keywords as well.

"Recurrence"[Mesh] OR recurren*[tiab] OR intractabl*[tiab] OR refractor*[tiab] OR persisten*[tiab] OR relaps*[tiab] OR incessan*[tiab] OR reinfection*[tiab]

EMBASE has exp recurrent disease/

These can also be useful:
recurren*[title] OR repetiti*[title] OR frequen*[title] OR cumulati*[title] OR repeat*[title] OR second*[title] OR multiple*[title] OR accumulat*[title] OR additive[title] OR additional[title] OR subsequent[title]

Two searches for elderly

When searching for information about elderly patients, there are two main possibilities.

The first possibility is that the requestor wants some articles about such-and-such disease in the elderly - a broad search. If you use "Aged" limit or MeSH to search this, you'll get masses of articles which look irrelevant, because the "Aged" MeSH in Medline is sometimes applied even if the study population only included one or two older patients. Therefore, I like to avoid the "Aged" MeSH altogether, and use keywords.

Here is my favourite search for cases like that:

elder*[tiab] OR geriatr*[tiab] OR gerontol*[tiab] OR "older adult"[tiab] OR "older adults"[tiab] OR "older person"[tiab] OR "older people"[tiab] OR "older patient"[tiab] OR "older patients"[tiab] OR "oldest old"[tiab] OR "late life"[tiab] OR "later life"[tiab] OR aging[tiab] OR ageing[tiab] OR octagenarian*[tiab] OR nonagenarian*[tiab]

The second possibility is that you have quite a specific topic, and have a relatively small set of search results to work with. You want a search that will find everything it can possibly find on elderly people, to combine with your already narrowed search.

Here's the one I use:

elder*[all fields] OR geriatr*[all fields] OR gerontol*[all fields] OR "older adult"[all fields] OR "older adults"[all fields] OR "older person"[all fields] OR "older people"[all fields] OR "older patient"[all fields] OR "older patients"[all fields] OR "oldest old"[all fields] OR "late life"[all fields] OR "later life"[all fields] OR aging[all fields] OR ageing[all fields] OR octagenarian*[all fields] OR nonagenarian*[all fields] OR "Aged"[Mesh] OR "Nursing Homes"[Mesh] OR "Homes for the Aged"[Mesh] OR "Assisted Living Facilities"[Mesh]

You'll note that I didn't search "aged" as a keyword, nor did I search senior*. If you search "aged" as a keyword, you get a lot of irrelevant results, such as "our study population included children aged 5-12". While the word "seniors" is used a lot in consumer health literature, it is hardly ever used in the biomedical literature. Instead, if you search senior* as a keyword, most of the results will be a quick mention of a senior attending physician or senior staff. I don't know if that is also true in a humanities database such as PsycInfo, so you may wish to experiment with the senior* keyword if you are using other databases.

Acute Alcohol Poisoning

You'd really think there would be more in the literature on this topic.

If you search "alcohol poisoning" in the MeSH database, you end up with no results. If you search it in Ovid Medline, the top result is Alcoholic Intoxication, which is not the same thing.

Here is the search which is most helpful:

"Ethanol/poisoning"[Mesh]

Emergency Kit (for doctors' offices)

Second time I've gotten this question - it's impossible to search with keywords (well, you can try, but you won't get anything), but as James Herriot says, it's all in knowing how to do it.

"Equipment and Supplies"[Mesh]
AND
"Physician's Offices"[Mesh] OR "Ambulatory Care Facilities"[Mesh]
AND
emergenc*[all fields]

You do have to sort through some irrelevant stuff, but not too much.

Life Span

To search for life span in Medline (PubMed syntax)

"Longevity"[Mesh] OR "Life Expectancy"[Mesh]

High Cholesterol

The problem with high cholesterol is that it's not a disease. It's kind of a symptom, kind of a blood chemical, kind of a chronic disease - kind of a pain!

"Cholesterol/blood"[Mesh] OR "Hypercholesterolemia"[Mesh]

or depending on your search, you might use:

"Cholesterol"[Mesh] OR "Hypercholesterolemia"[Mesh]

Postoperative Care

Here is what you find if you search Postoperative in the MeSH database:

Postoperative Care
Postoperative Period
Postoperative Complications (with narrower terms)

But when you search the same in CINAHL, it also suggests:
Aftercare

And when I searched it in the MeSH database, it exists!

So you can do this search:

Medline (PubMed)
"Postoperative Care"[Mesh] OR "Postoperative Period"[Mesh] OR "Postoperative Complications"[Mesh] OR "Aftercare"[Mesh]

CINAHL:
MH "Postoperative Period" OR MH "Postoperative Care+" OR MH "Postoperative Complications+" OR MH "Aftercare"

Yay...

EMBASE:

exp postoperative period/ OR exp postoperative complication/ OR exp aftercare/


postoperative period includes postoperative care as well as other narrower terms. Postoperative complication has many narrower terms.