The Dementia Caregiver's Toolbox : Dementia Outdoors

 

Unless you are a hermit, you probably spend some part of your day outside the place you live.  Even if it is just going back and forth to work, you pass through the outdoors on your way to somewhere else.  It is NORMAL for humans to spend time enjoying the benefits of the outdoors.

Sometimes dementia caregivers find that the outdoors, even a yard attached to a house, can become an anxiety provoking situation when they care for someone with dementia.  Finding a way to balance safety with the obvious pluses of an outdoor experience is the key…..

Technorati Tags: dementia,outdoor activities

The Dementia Caregiver's Toolbox : Dementia Outdoors

CMS proposes granting states more flexibility with Medicaid HCBS waivers - McKnight's Long Term Care News

Image via Wikipedia

 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services plans to propose a rule allowing states to combine waivers for three separate home and community-based services target populations. This continues the federal government's push to expand Medicaid funding to home- and community-based care……

Technorati Tags: CMS,Medicaid Waivers

CMS proposes granting states more flexibility with Medicaid HCBS waivers - McKnight's Long Term Care News

Aging after Brain Injury Information | Brain Injury Books & Articles

 

The number of elderly persons has increased dramatically along with the number of people with disabilities who are aging. The overall death rate from traumatic brain injury decreased with advances in long-term medical care, rehabilitation and social support. However, successful aging is more than simply living longer. It involves maintaining physical, cognitive and social functions (Aravich & McDonnell, 2005).

0 Rules to Promote Successful Aging in Survivors of TBI

Aravich and McDonnell suggest the following…

• Take care of the survivor’s heart
• Exercise the survivor’s body
• Exercise the survivor’s brain
• Feed the survivor’s brain
• Promote mental health in the survivor
• Avoid tobacco, alcohol and other drugs of abuse
• Avoid social isolation
• Protect the survivor’s brain
• Form more partnerships for individuals with TBI
• Look for greatness in each person (Aravich & McDonnell, 2005)

Aging after Brain Injury Information | Brain Injury Books & Articles

Seniors' social activity slows decline, death, study finds - McKnight's Long Term Care News

 

Social engagement among seniors can slow motor function loss and fend off overall age-related decline, according to a recently published study…..

Technorati Tags: social engagement,LTC

Seniors' social activity slows decline, death, study finds - McKnight's Long Term Care News

Inventors Helps Fairfax Seniors Get Connected to Online News, Entertainment - washingtonpost.com

Technorati Tags: LTC,AT

Two young inventors have created a device, with the help of hands-on testing at a Fairfax County retirement community, that they say might change the way older Americans get news and entertainment.

Using modified MP3 players, computers and large touch-screen monitors in high-contrast colors for people with impaired vision, Charles De Vilmorin and Herve Roussel have created a digital kiosk that serves as a sort of iPod for older people.

Inventors Helps Fairfax Seniors Get Connected to Online News, Entertainment - washingtonpost.com

Thanks and a hat tip to Sharon Hold

 

Voices
       It was a beautiful, sunny, spring day as adapt rolled in a convoy of wheelchairs for two city blocks through the streets of Washington D.C. As a deep, male voice chanted in the background “Free our sisters, free our brothers, free our people now!” Sometimes the male voice would change the chants “To Our Homes, not nursing homes!”  To me this was my favorite chant, to tell the world that people with disabilities have feelings and rights just like everyone else. “We are the People…” Abraham Lincoln once wrote for all the people not just some. He freed African American from slavery. Now it’s President Obama turn to free us in the health care reformed bill.
       Community Choice Care Act allows people with disabilities the right to choose between nursing homes and their own homes, which makes sense in these economic times. Medicare and Medicaid pays double or even triple the amount for nursing homes making our national debt increase. Rather then giving people with disabilities a choice their natural basic right, to choose where and how to live.
       Community Choice Care Act also stimulates the economy by giving jobs to the unemployed. Helpers, aides, and PA they help people with disabilities lives to make them much easier to live with. People with disabilities can do just anything attend college, to live on their own, and get a job to pay taxes to decrease the national debt with the right supports. However most people cannot afford to be helpers, aides, or PA, people with disabilities hire and fire their own staff without benefits. Helpers received minimum wage sometimes paying dues into a union that doesn’t always look out for their best interest. Before my trip, my helper had a bad toothache. Without insurance her tooth could not be saved. I felt really terrible about it as her employer but there was nothing I could do about it. McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell can pay their employees nine to ten dollars an hour for fast foods. Why are people with disabilities   human beings with feelings and rights are below fast foods?  It just does not seem right somehow.
       Our wheelchair convoy went to the White House to talked President Obama’s spokes people to include the Community Care Choice Act in health reform. They refused so ADAPT took action. President Obama endorsed this act while he was a senator in Congress. What changed his mind? People with disabilities were good enough to believe and vote for him. Now we are not the majority. He is betraying a promise. ADAPT sent a very clear message to him. “We won’t go away!”  I got arrested for standing up in what I believe in.
--------------------

Technorati Tags: ADAPT,CCA

PHI PolicyWorks | Information, Innovation, and Action for Quality Direct Care Jobs

This is a GREAT site! Everything you need to know about workforce issues in LTC. Great addition to PHI’s pantheon of resources. 

Technorati Tags: LTC,workforce

PHI PolicyWorks | Information, Innovation, and Action for Quality Direct Care Jobs

The Case for Giving Eli Lilly the Corporate Death Penalty | Health and Wellness | AlterNet

 

Eli Lilly & Company's rap sheet as a public menace is so long that for Lilly watchers to overcome the "banality-of-Lilly-sleaziness" phenomenon, the drug company must break some type of record measuring egregiousness. Lilly obliged earlier this year, receiving the largest criminal fine ever imposed on a corporation.

If Americans are ever going to revoke the publicly granted charters of reckless, giant corporations -- well within our rights -- we might want to get the ball rolling with Lilly, whose recent actions appalled even the mainstream media. And with Lilly's chums, the Bush family, out of power, now might be the right time.

On January 15, 2009, Lilly pled guilty to charges that it had illegally marketed its blockbuster drug Zyprexa for unapproved uses to children and the elderly, two populations especially vulnerable to its dangerous side effect. Lilly plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and agreed to pay $1.42 billion, which included $615 million to end the criminal investigation and approximately $800 million to settle the civil case……

Technorati Tags: Eli Lilly,ethics

The Case for Giving Eli Lilly the Corporate Death Penalty | Health and Wellness | AlterNet

Coma, Vegetative State, Minimally Conscious State: Frequent Misdiagnoses And Inconsistent Standards In Europe Pose Ethical Problems

 

"Latest research raises important ethical issues concerning our care for patients with chronic consciousness disorders,"…….

"This is all the more important as studies have shown that more than a third of patients given an initial diagnosis of vegetative state or persistent vegetative state show minimal signs of consciousness under more detailed examination."…….

Technorati Tags: coma,Minimally conscious state,ethics,research

Coma, Vegetative State, Minimally Conscious State: Frequent Misdiagnoses And Inconsistent Standards In Europe Pose Ethical Problems

Vehmas and Sobsey commentaries: now captioned « What Sorts of People

Technorati Tags: bioethics,eugenics,disability

Below are the short commentaries–now closed captioned–delivered by Professors Simo Vehmas and Dick Sobsey as part of a panel discussion on the theme The Modern Pursuit of Human Perfection: Defining Who is Worthy of  Life.

Bioethical Reflections on Disability, Medicine, and Family Life (Simo Vehmas)

Decisions and Dishonesty in Medicine (Dick Sobsey)

Simo is one of Finland’s leading bioethicists who joined us for the panel discussion, while Dick is one of the world’s authorities on violence and disability and runs the ICAD blog…….

Vehmas and Sobsey commentaries: now captioned « What Sorts of People

An Anniversary of Freedom

Technorati Tags: Olmstead,ADA,CCA,ADAPT

Today is the 10th Anniversary of the Olmstead decision by the Supreme Court.  This decision was the single most important result of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. The decision said that states couldn’t force people to live in institutions just because the state thought it was more convenient.

Federal law placed on states an affirmative demand that they work to allow people with disabilities to live in the community of their choice with the supports they need to succeed.

At this 10 year anniversary, it is worthwhile remembering why this is so important:

• As an advocate, every institution I was ever involved with, had many and continuing instances of physical and sexual abuse by staff on those who were forced to live in them.
• Every institution constricts freedom, personal development and choice for its own convenience.
• Every institution denies rights taken for granted by the rest of us to those who live in them for its own convenience.
• Every institution administration views those who live in them as beds, slots, billable payments, or drains on cash flow.
• Every institution discourages the creation of real human relationships between those who live there, between staff and those who live there, and between administrators and those who live there, with policies, the criticism of “unprofessional”, and a constant cultural belief that residents are the inferiors of those who “care” for them.

Let us take a moment to remember our brothers and sisters who are still living in institutions, and reaffirm our commitment to use the Olmstead decision to help them to live in the community of their choice.

 

Boosting Home Care: An Uphill Battle - Kaiser Health News

Once a senior begins receiving long-term care services, she and her family often are in for two shocks. The first is that Medicare won’t pay beyond perhaps a few months after a hospitalization. The second is that while Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, may help, chances are it will only do so for nursing home residents.

Now, as part of the broader health reform debate, Congress may be about to make it easier for families to keep their loved ones at home, even if they are getting Medicaid. Under one plan, backed by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, states would have to offer the same access to home care as they do for nursing facilities. A second, more modest bill, sponsored by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, would make more disabled and frail elderly eligible for home care and provide extra federal funding for states that create generous home care programs. The “Empowered at Home Act,” which probably has a better chance than the Harkin bill, would not require states to offer these benefits.

Technorati Tags: home care,bills,LTC

Boosting Home Care: An Uphill Battle - Kaiser Health News

‘Telemedicine’ house helps older people stay safe and independent - Times Online

Technorati Tags: LTC,telemedicine

It sounds like a fantasy straight from The Truman Show: a house that monitors your every move, from bedside to bathroom and from medicine cabinet to fridge. The aim, however, is to help the elderly to lead safe and independent lives.

Researchers are working on a “health house” so sophisticated that it will not only track everyday habits but also check weight and blood pressure and predict whether a person is at risk of a serious fall.

Patient data, such as risks of hypertension, diabetes and respiratory problems, would be combined with information on daily routines to create an algorithm capable of identifying subtle health changes that might signal more serious problems.

‘Telemedicine’ house helps older people stay safe and independent - Times Online

11 Types of Music that Soothe Dementia « A Psychiatrist with Lewy Body Dementia (LBD)

 

Why is it that I can remember the lyrics of every awful ’70s pop tune I catch the merest snatch of while turning a radio dial, but not the name of the street two miles away? The answer is good news; that is, if you spend time with someone who has Alzheimer’s, dementia, or Parkinson’s Disease.

For a person with a neurological impairment, music can “stimulate a sense of identity as nothing else can,” says neurologist Oliver Sacks, who writes about the evocative powers of music in last year’s bestseller, Musicophilia, and in the November issue of O magazine.

Some ideas to try:

Heyday favorites. Unsure what the person has long liked (jazz, big band, classical)? Google “music era” with the decades during which the person was a teenager or in his or her 20s (1920s, 1940s, and so on).

Christmas carols. ‘Tis the season (so stores already tell us). Start with classics: Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Elvis, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Technorati Tags: LTC,Lewy Body Dementia

and many more suggestions……

11 Types of Music that Soothe Dementia « A Psychiatrist with Lewy Body Dementia (LBD)

Not Dead Yet News & Commentary: Terrie Lincoln: "How I DIDN'T Die" ( part 1)

Image via Wikipedia

 

Posted on June 16, 2009

By Terrie Lincoln, Systems Advocate

For several months, I’ve been polishing the story of my recovery from the accident that brought me into the world of disability. Until recently, I hadn’t talked much about this period of my life. The memories can still make me angry. The anger isn’t about my disability, though. The anger is about the doctors that didn’t think I would have a life worth living – and how hard my family had to fight to make sure I received the treatment I needed to survive…….

The full story is well worth reading. I have heard similar stories from other people with severe disabilities.  Another example of the same kind of medical thinking can occur

Technorati Tags: Not Dead yet,medical model,ethics

when a person with a significant disability goes into a hospital for elective surgery. The person is pestered on every shift to sign a DNR order.

 

Not Dead Yet News & Commentary: Terrie Lincoln: "How I DIDN'T Die" ( part 1)

New Medicare Rules On Oxygen Suppliers Worry Patients - Kaiser Health News

Technorati Tags: LTC,community-based. oxygen services

Complex new Medicare rules that seek to cut costs of home-oxygen therapy are confusing the more than one million people who rely on the federal insurer to pay for the coverage.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the new rules “underline how complicated and difficult it will be to control Medicare costs,” a key part of President Barack Obama’s efforts to cut Medicare and Medicaid costs to help pay for a health-care overhaul. Under the new rules, "which began to affect patients on Jan. 1, Medicare will pay suppliers at its prevailing rate for the first three years after a patient begins coverage. Suppliers are then required to continue providing oxygen services to patients for another two years, but at a sharply reduced payment rate. After that, patients are entitled to receive new equipment and Medicare will resume paying suppliers at the higher rate. The changes, aimed at trimming costs for Medicare, have created problems for some patients who want to find a new source for their oxygen... Some suppliers are balking at accepting new patients who are approaching, or have already reached, Medicare's new three-year limit on full payments. That's because the companies would have to provide oxygen services for the next two years without getting much payment.”…………

New Medicare Rules On Oxygen Suppliers Worry Patients - Kaiser Health News

Obama opens the door for drastic new Medicare, Medicaid cuts for nursing homes - McKnight's Long Term Care News

Image via Wikipedia

Technorati Tags: LTC,Medicaid cuts

Frayed nerves were showing in the provider community Monday after President Obama announced his intentions Saturday to cut $313 billion more from Medicare and Medicaid over the next 10 years. The proposed new cuts are in addition to the $635 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending reductions already included in the president's FY 2010 budget, and include billions in potential payment reductions.
Nursing homes, long-term care hospitals and rehabilitation facilities, would see their share of Medicare and Medicaid money reduced by $14.4 billion over the next decade under Obama's new proposal

Obama opens the door for drastic new Medicare, Medicaid cuts for nursing homes - McKnight's Long Term Care News

Amazon.com: Mosby's Textbook for Long-Term Care Assistants - Text, Workbook, and Mosby's Nursing Assistant Video Skills - Student Version DVD 3.0 Package: Sheila A. Sorrentino RN MSN PhD, Bernie Gorek RNC GNP MA NHA, Relda T. Kelly RN BSN MSN, Mosby: Books

Technorati Tags: LTC,training,CNA

Amazon.com: Mosby's Textbook for Long-Term Care Assistants - Text, Workbook, and Mosby's Nursing Assistant Video Skills - Student Version DVD 3.0 Package: Sheila A. Sorrentino RN MSN PhD, Bernie Gorek RNC GNP MA NHA, Relda T. Kelly RN BSN MSN, Mosby: Books

Long Term Care Insurance - Understanding the Four Basic Components

 

You've done your research and have decided that Long Term Care Insurance (LTCI) is right for you and your family. The next step is to become familiar with the basic structural components of an LTCI policy.

When building an LTCI policy there are four primary variables that must be considered. They are:

• daily benefit amount
• benefit period
• elimination period
• inflation protection

………

Technorati Tags: LTC insurance

Long Term Care Insurance - Understanding the Four Basic Components

New Disability Figures Show Sharp Rise in Numbers

 

The number of U.S. adults reporting a disability increased by 3.4 million between 1999 and 2005, according to a recent report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The most common causes of disability among adults in the United States are arthritis or rheumatism, back or spine problems, and heart disease.

That increase is part of a pattern, suggests study co-author Dr. Chad Helmick. "It is likely we will see more dramatic increases in the number of adults with a disability as the baby-boomer population begins to enter higher risk, older-age groups over the next 20 years."…….

Technorati Tags: LTC,disability rates

New Disability Figures Show Sharp Rise in Numbers

Lawmakers Want Federal Rules To Cover Home Health Care Workers And End-Of-Life Care

 

….."a group of Democratic senators on Thursday urged the Labor Department to reverse a Bush administration policy by extending federal wage and hour laws to home health care workers. Most domestic workers are covered by laws governing minimum wage and overtime pay, but home workers that care for the elderly and disabled have long been considered exempt. The 15 lawmakers - led by Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin - say the growing number of full-time home care workers serving an aging population deserve the same workplace rights as other employees." The AP notes that Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1974 to cover household workers, but exempted baby sitters and companions for the ill or elderly, and that the Supreme Court upheld the Labor Department's interpretation of the law to exclude home care workers two years later: "At her confirmation hearing earlier this year, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis indicated a willingness to consider rules that would expand the law to all home care workers. But the agency has not yet issued any notice of proposed rules on the issue."……

Technorati Tags: LTC,home care,community-based,DCW,wages

Lawmakers Want Federal Rules To Cover Home Health Care Workers And End-Of-Life Care

Computer System For Dementia Patients

Technorati Tags: LTC,AT,dementia,independence

The labour force in the health services is shrinking, there are more and more old people, and a very high proportion of them are plagued by deteriorating short- and long-term memory. All this has created a need for computer-based solutions that will enable elderly people to live safely in their own homes, but at the same time, the technology needed to take special care of them is expensive. On top of this, different standards for home sensors create problems…..

Reminder board
What is being tested out in Norway today is a simple communication system based on a computer screen, aimed at elderly people who live at home but whose memory is failing. No keyboard is needed, only a touch on the screen, which displays the sun and the moon to indicate whether it is day or night, while a large clock-face shows the time…..

Computer System For Dementia Patients

Dusk-to-Dawn Therapy for Dementia’s Restless Minds - NYTimes.com

 

…….The seven women all have Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, and are part of the Hebrew Home’s ElderServe at Night, a dusk-to-dawn drop-off program intended to strengthen their decaying minds while sating their thirst to be active after dark.

Alzheimer’s is an irreversible brain disease that destroys memory, and it is one form of dementia, a disorder marked by the loss of mental functions. Nighttime can be treacherous for people with dementia, who are often struck by sleeplessness or night terrors and prone to wandering about. This agitation and disorientation, called “sundowning,” is especially vexing for relatives trying to care for them at home, and often hastens their placement in nursing homes.

While there are countless day care programs for the nation’s estimated 5.3 million Alzheimer’s patients, some experts believe that ElderServe at Night, which began a decade ago, is the only one of its kind in the country…….

Technorati Tags: LTC,dementia,sundowning

Dusk-to-Dawn Therapy for Dementia’s Restless Minds - NYTimes.com

The Associated Press: Kennedy health plan includes long-term care

Image via Wikipedia

 

Americans would be able to buy long-term care insurance from the government for $65 a month under a provision tucked into sweeping health care legislation that senators will begin considering next week.

The 651-page bill, released Tuesday by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., would revamp the way health insurance works. Insurance companies would face a slew of new government rules, dealing with everything from guaranteed coverage for people with health problems to possible limitations on profits. Taxpayers, employers and individuals would share in the cost of expanding coverage to nearly 50 million uninsured Americans….

Technorati Tags: LTC,health care reform,Kennedy

The Associated Press: Kennedy health plan includes long-term care

Steve Gold's Treasured Bits of Information - Archives

 

June 22, 2009 marks the10th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Olmstead ruling for disability civil rights. Some people have made an analogy between the Olmstead decision and the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 . Let's compare them.

Nearly ten years after the black civil rights movement's victory in Brown, incremental, albeit not overwhelming, progress had occurred. Nonetheless, some people thought the black civil rights struggle had stalled. Nearly ten years after the disability civil rights movement's victory in the Olmstead decision, incremental progress has occurred as well. But still, more than 313,000 people with disabilities in nursing homes (23= % of the total) want to live in the community, and yet are denied their civil right to integration, primarily because of Medicaid's historical bias in favor of segregation. Many of them are on "waiting lists" for their civil rights. Can you imagine a "waiting list" for black civil rights?……

Technorati Tags: Olmstead,LTC,CCA

Steve Gold's Treasured Bits of Information - Archives

Not Dead Yet News & Commentary: Chicago NDY Visits Final Exit Network's Annual Meeting

 

Last Saturday, June 6, the Final Exit Network held its annual meeting at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel in Schiller Park, IL, near Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
Nine disability activists gave up their Saturday, sitting and standing in the chilly drizzle that day. Our numbers were down for 3 major reasons:

1. There wasn't much advance warning for the protest, due to fairly short notice regarding the meeting itself;
2. Many disability activists were at the conference of NCIL - National Council on Independent Living, in Washington, D.C.;
3. Paratransit rides are difficult to get on weekends and the location was a little out of the way.

The numbers were more than enough to do what we set out to do - give a "reality check" to the "assisted suicide ring" aka Final Exit Network (FEN)..

Technorati Tags: Not Dead yet,LTC

…..

Not Dead Yet News & Commentary: Chicago NDY Visits Final Exit Network's Annual Meeting

Info Long-Term Care: Better Care Every Step of the Way: Report on the Quality of Palliative and End of Life Care

Technorati Tags: LTC,palliative care

Published by the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care in April 2009, this report details what the Healthcare Regulation Care Commission found out about palliative and end of life care from their inspections; and what they learned from complaints about palliative and end of life care in care homes.

http://www.carecommission.com/images/stories/documents/publications/reviewsofqualitycare/better_care_every_step_of_the_way_-_april_2009.pdf

Info Long-Term Care: Better Care Every Step of the Way: Report on the Quality of Palliative and End of Life Care

PhilosopherCrip

 

Sentencing Statements by 38 ADAPT defendants, in front of Judge Keary, DC Superior Court, Washington, DC on May 20, 2009, in the case of United States of America v. Pamela Aver, et. al., Docket #2009-CDC-10565, et. al., following a guilty plea to unlawful assembly, and failure to obey a lawful order, for a protest at the United States Capitol on April 28, 2009:

Lantonya Reeves says: My physical disability is cerebral palsy & legal blindness. I had to move from Tennessee to Colorado because I needed attendant services & support. I had to leave my family & friends so I didn’t end up in a nursing home. I was at the Action at the Capitol because I was advocating for the COMMUNITY CHOICE ACT. This legislation will cover all the states so that disabled people will not have to be institutionalized in nursing homes. …Over a hundred ADAPT members [were] arrested. This is because we, ADAPT strongly believe that people in nursing homes should have the right to choose where they live. –

Technorati Tags: ADAPT,Community Choice Act

PhilosopherCrip

Democrats Look To Expand Disability Services | Political Hotsheet - CBS News

Image by studio08denver via Flickr

 

WASHINGTON – Expanding federal assistance for people with disabilities is a matter of civil rights, a Democratic senator said Monday – one that must be addressed through the overhaul of the nation's health care system currently underway in Congress.
"The way I see it, [this] is a civil rights issue," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. "As far as I'm concerned, there is no health reform without the Community Choice Act."…..

Technorati Tags: LTC,Community Choice Act

Democrats Look To Expand Disability Services | Political Hotsheet - CBS News

MRSA thriving on one-quarter of nursing home residents, study results show - McKnight's Long Term Care News

 

Nearly one in every four nursing home residents has been colonized by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), according to a recently published report from Queen's University Belfast.
After taking samples from 1,111 residents and 553 staff members at 45 nursing homes in Ireland, researchers discovered that roughly 24% of residents and 7% of staff carry the tough-to-treat disease. According to report authors, 24% is the median rate of colonization, with individual nursing home results running the gamut: three nursing homes were entirely free of MRSA, while at least one had a 73% rate of resident colonization. Similarly, staff members at only 28 of the nursing homes that were tested were found to carry the disease; the highest rate of colonization was 28%…..

Technorati Tags: LTC,nursing homes,MRSA

MRSA thriving on one-quarter of nursing home residents, study results show - McKnight's Long Term Care News

Downturn Puts a Chokehold on Those Caring for Family Members - NYTimes.com

Technorati Tags: LTC,caregiver

Teresa Denk is 59 years old and lives with her father, a former mechanic who is 92 and requires constant care. Ms. Denk has not held a full-time job since 2000, when her mother developed cancer and required her daughter’s full-time care.

Asked how she meets her monthly expenses, she said, “I do a lot of praying.”

The economic crisis has spread its pain widel

dely, but it has placed special stresses on the estimated 44 million Americans who provide care for an elderly or disabled relative or spouse, many of whom have already made themselves financially vulnerable trying to balance work and family. Many like Ms. Denk, who stepped away from the work force, are now facing ever-bleaker prospects

Downturn Puts a Chokehold on Those Caring for Family Members - NYTimes.com

"Smart" devices may help dementia sufferers remember to shut off stove, live at home longer : Scientific American Blog

Thanks and a hat tip to Kathryn Wyeth…. 

From the country that brought the world George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four comes a new, friendlier kind of Big Brother. This one is here to help people with memory loss live on their own longer. Engineers at the Bath Institute of Medical Engineering (BIME), at Bath University in England have designed and tested an integrated system that not only monitors people's actions, but can speak to them, contact help, turn off appliances and faucets, and even e-mail family and caretakers.

Technorati Tags: LTC,AT,assistive technology

 
"The whole objective is to enable people to stay at home as long as they can," says Bruce Carey-Smith, a BIME design engineer. The system reports the wealth of information it collects—from potential problems to successful interventions—to health care providers. "It's about supporting—not about replacing—the role of care staff," Carey-Smith says.

"Smart" devices may help dementia sufferers remember to shut off stove, live at home longer : Scientific American Blog

Fighting For The Community Choice Act on Vimeo

This site includes 7 videos by Nick that are anti-institution, pro community living blog entries. The latest is a great video mashup of ADAPT and the recent CCA rally. The others in the series are blog entries by Nick who is in an institution.

Amazing stuff! W

Technorati Tags: CCA,ADAPT,Nick's Crusade

ell worth seeing.

Fighting For The Community Choice Act on Vimeo

Study: Medical Bills Underlie 60 Percent Of U.S. Bankruptcies - Kaiser Health News

 

"Medical bills are involved in more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just six years, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday," according to Reuters. The researchers found that "more than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts." Most of them were "well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations," the researchers from Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University wrote in the American Journal of Medicine………

Technorati Tags: bankruptcy,medical bills

Study: Medical Bills Underlie 60 Percent Of U.S. Bankruptcies - Kaiser Health News

Docuticker » Blog Archive » Perceptions of Long-term Care and the Economic Recession

Technorati Tags: LTC,community based

Key findings include the following:

• In 2008, most respondents (42%) said that if they required LTC, they expected to live at home and have an aide for a few hours each day. This proportion increased slightly (49%) in 2009 as a result of the economic downturn.
• In 2008, 29% said they never thought about or did not know where they would receive LTC services; in 2009, this figure dropped to 22%.
• About half of respondents (51%) said they feel very or fairly prepared to financially deal with a situation in which they would suddenly require LTC for an indefinite period of time, while more than four in ten said they are not very (18%) or not at all prepared (25%).
• Older respondents (age 65+) and those with higher incomes (over $25,000 annually) were more likely to say they feel financially prepared for LTC than their counterparts.
• Men were more likely than women to say they never thought about or did not know where they would receive LTC services (in 2008, 36% versus 23%; in 2009, 27% versus 18%).

+ Full Report (PDF; 292 KB)

Docuticker » Blog Archive » Perceptions of Long-term Care and the Economic Recession

Last Titanic Survivor Dies - Sold Her Treasures to Pay for Long-Term Care » Changing Aging - Ecumen

Technorati Tags: LTC,Titanic,survivor

Last October we wrote about Millvina Dean, the last living survivor of the Titanic.  She had to sell her Titanic treasures so she could afford long-term care.  Ms. Dean died this weekend at 97.  Below is video of an interview she gave last October.

Last Titanic Survivor Dies - Sold Her Treasures to Pay for Long-Term Care » Changing Aging - Ecumen

National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP)

 

The National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) serves as the authoritative voice for improved patient outcomes in pressure ulcer prevention and treatment through public policy, education and research.

Technorati Tags: LTC,pressure sores,decubitus

National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP)

SEIU recommends changes to long-term care as way to reduce healthcare costs - McKnight's Long Term Care News

Image via Wikipedia

 

When President Obama announced May 11 that six leading healthcare industry groups would band together to reduce healthcare costs by $2 trillion over the next decade, many were skeptical. On Monday, however, those groups submitted their proposals—and one has suggested changing care delivery in the long-term care field.
One of the six groups, the Service Employees International Union, which is the largest single representative of healthcare workers in the U.S., told the Obama administration that it would pursue cost savings through expanded home- and community-based services. Additional federal funding for HCBS through Medicaid would limit institutional costs and potentially save $43 billion over 10 years, according to the SEIU proposal. Another avenue for savings in the area of long-term care could be expanded Medicare nursing home value-based purchasing, SEIU also suggested.

SEIU recommends changes to long-term care as way to reduce healthcare costs - McKnight's Long Term Care News

Nutrition White Paper Website Version.pdf (application/pdf Object)

The purpose of this white paper is to review the
currently available scientific evidence related to
nutrition and hydration for pressure ulcer
prevention and treatment in adults; introduce the
nutrition recommendations from the new
National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel
(NPUAP)-European Pressure Ulcer Advisory
Panel (EPUAP) Guidelines for Pressure Ulcer
Treatment; and review research needs for the
future.
Overview of Pressure Ulcers: Prevalence,………

Nutrition White Paper Website Version.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Light-Treatment Device Developed To Improve Sleep Quality In The Elderly

 

Sleep disturbances increase as we age. Some studies report more than half of seniors 65 years of age or older suffer from chronic sleep disturbances. Researchers have long believed that the sleep disturbances common among the elderly often result from a disruption of the body's circadian rhythms - biological cycles that repeat approximately every 24 hours.
In recent years, scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center and elsewhere have demonstrated that blue light is the most effective at stimulating the circadian system when combined with the appropriate light intensity, spatial distribution, timing, and duration. A team at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) has tested a goggle-like device designed to deliver blue light directly to the eyes to improve sleep quality in older adults. ……

Light-Treatment Device Developed To Improve Sleep Quality In The Elderly

Americas Watchdog Creates The Nursing Home Complaint Center To Team Up With Personal Injury Law Firms To Do Some Good

 

Americas Watchdog has created the Nursing Home Abuse Center to go after nursing homes that abuse their patients, and wants to assist law firms that also have an interest in Medicare-Medicaid fraud, Class actions, and employee wage and hour issues. According to the group, "we want to team up with larger personal injury law firms in specific cities, where we know nursing home abuse, Medicare or Medicaid fraud, and employee wage, and hour issues are rampant, to put a big dent in the problem." Personal Injury Law Firms, class action law firms, or employment law firms that might have an interest in this are welcome to call the group at 866-714-6466, or visit their web site at Http://NursingHomeComplaintCenter.Com………

Americas Watchdog Creates The Nursing Home Complaint Center To Team Up With Personal Injury Law Firms To Do Some Good

Americas Watchdog Creates The Nursing Home Complaint Center To Team Up With Personal Injury Law Firms To Do Some Good

 

Americas Watchdog has created the Nursing Home Abuse Center to go after nursing homes that abuse their patients, and wants to assist law firms that also have an interest in Medicare-Medicaid fraud, Class actions, and employee wage and hour issues. According to the group, "we want to team up with larger personal injury law firms in specific cities, where we know nursing home abuse, Medicare or Medicaid fraud, and employee wage, and hour issues are rampant, to put a big dent in the problem." Personal Injury Law Firms, class action law firms, or employment law firms that might have an interest in this are welcome to call the group at 866-714-6466, or visit their web site at Http://NursingHomeComplaintCenter.Com………

Americas Watchdog Creates The Nursing Home Complaint Center To Team Up With Personal Injury Law Firms To Do Some Good