HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced plans to establish the nation’s first national resource center to assist communities across the country in their efforts to provide services and supports for older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals.
Experts estimate that as many as 1.5 to 4 million LGBT individuals are age 60 and older. Agencies that provide services to older individuals may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the needs of this group of individuals. The new Resource Center for LGBT Elders will provide information, assistance and resources for both LGBT organizations and mainstream aging services providers at the state and community level to assist them in the development and provision of culturally sensitive supports and services. The LGBT Center will also be available to educate the LGBT community about the importance of planning ahead for future long term care needs.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
AMERICAblog Gay | A great people deserve their rights: HHS to Create a National Resource Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Elders
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Senate addresses long-term care plan - Cleveland.com
If you live long enough after becoming seriously sick or disabled, chances are high that you will spend all your money, be declared poor and get the government to pay for your care.
It happens to millions every year. But Congress could soon give working Americans another choice. Buried in congressional health care reform proposals is a seldom-mentioned plan for a government-run long-term care insurance program…….
The Faces of Medicaid III: Refining the Portrait of People with Multiple Chronic Conditions
While creating better systems of care for aged, blind, and disabled beneficiaries is a priority within Medicaid, it is a challenge given the vast heterogeneity of this complex population. The Faces of Medicaid III: Refining the Portrait of People with Multiple Chronic Conditions provides insights for targeting efforts to improve care and control spending for the program's highest-need, highest-cost beneficiaries.
Building on the 2007 Faces of Medicaid II report, this subsequent analysis examines two data sets -- pharmacy claims and five years of diagnostic data -- to further refine what is known about Medicaid beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions. Researchers Rick Kronick, PhD, and Todd Gilmer, PhD, both from the University of California, San Diego, found that by looking at pharmacy data in addition to claims:
- The proportion of Medicaid beneficiaries with disabilities who are diagnosed with three or more chronic conditions increases from 35 percent to 45 percent;
- The frequency of psychiatric illness among Medicaid beneficiaries with disabilities increases from 29 percent to 49 percent, and the prevalence of cardiovascular disease increases from 32 percent to 44 percent; and
- Costs for beneficiaries with three or more chronic conditions increases from 66 percent to 75 percent of total spending for beneficiaries with disabilities…….
The Faces of Medicaid III: Refining the Portrait of People with Multiple Chronic Conditions
David Oaks, Director: MindFreedom International
ABC News had just done a feature on mental health and had prominently featured MindFreedom International, a group that advocates for “psychiatric survivors” who have battled mental and emotional problems. But the second half of the show hinged on the lurid tale of a guy who had gone off his meds and committed an ax murder. Typical media sensationalism, says MindFreedom director David Oaks.
“How do you debate an ax murderer?” he vents. “There are no issues there. We’re pro-choice on taking psych drugs. So that was very frustrating.”……
Atlanta Action Redux
So, my netbook decided to start hating the hotel wireless and Atlanta and I never had the time or inclination to buy the wireless service when I moved on to DC, so here I am back in MI wanting to say something at least about the final 2 days of the Atlanta ADAPT action!
Tuesday was, by far, the most intense of the 3 days of direct action. We assembled in the ballroom, as it was still raining, before venturing forth to the Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights regional headquarters.
Our aim was to start an authentic conversation about enforcing the Olmstead supreme court decision in Georgia and the surrounding south eastern region. Complying with this ADA case law would mean providing long term care services to people with disabilities in the least restrictive setting, namely, not an institution. The case was decided a decade ago, in 1999, but there are not mechanisms in place for the government to hold itself accountable to the ruling. ADAPT showed up in force to raise this issue in a way that a few local “advocates” cannot do on their own with polite phone calls and letters. This is not to diminish the efforts of those in Atlanta working every day to free our people. However, there comes a time when power is so unbalanced that direct action is the only way to create the tension necessary to force dialogue…..
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Results For "mental illness hope recovery" - SearchMedica - Professional Medical Search
Many More articles-most crap, some good…..
Psychiatric symptoms substance abuse hope employment independent living [ Time Frame: 18 ... step to systematically evaluating the effectiveness of a comprehensive manual-based approach to improving recovery outcomes for veterans with severe mental illness. As an implementation package IMR offers mental health providers useful tools that could be widely disseminated across the VA system. ... http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00515671
www.clinicaltrials.gov Aug 17, 2009
Cached Was this helpful?2 How to Support Recovery for People With Mental Illness -- Diamond 60 (9): 1155 -- Psychiatr Serv
Chronically Mentally Ill Patients Recovery Related Article Taking Issue How to Support Recovery for People With Mental Illness Ronald J. Diamond M.D. Department of Psychiatry University of Wisconsin Madison ... First support the attitude of recovery whenever and wherever it occurs. Support hope. ... http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/short/60/9/1155
ps.psychiatryonline.org Sep 1, 2009
Results For "mental illness hope recovery" - SearchMedica - Professional Medical Search
IRS Announces Higher Tax Deductions For Long Term Care Insurance, Long Term Care Insurance
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has approved increased deductibility levels for long term care insurance policies purchased in 2010 according to a just-issued report by the American Association for Long Term Care Insurance, the industry trade group……
IRS Announces Higher Tax Deductions For Long Term Care Insurance, Long Term Care Insurance
Medicaid spending for home- and community-based care soars, report finds - McKnight's Long Term Care News
Medicaid spending for home- and community-based services (HCBS) skyrocketed by 81.5% between fiscal years 2001 and 2007, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Center for Assisted Living. Meanwhile, spending on nursing homes grew by a modest 9.8% during that time……
Friday, October 16, 2009
California Home Care Cuts Put on Hold | PHInational.org
A federal judge stopped the state from sending notices to 130,000 elderly and disabled Californians to inform them that their home care supportive services would be reduced — or eliminated entirely — on November 1.
A temporary restraining order — granted the day before the letters were to be dropped in the mail — prohibits the state from sending the notices until a court decides on October 19 whether it should issue a longer preliminary injunction.
The ruling is a win for advocates and unions that filed a federal class-action lawsuit on behalf of California’s home care supportive clients.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Disabled advocates score meeting with GA gov staf
ATLANTA (AP) - A group of disabled advocates who forced their way into the State Capitol have left after scoring a meeting with Gov. Sonny Perdue's chief of staff.
Roughly 200 protesters representing a national organization of disabled activists surrounded the Capitol Monday morning.....
Monday, October 12, 2009
Supporting culture change in nursing home
1328_Stone_supporting_culture_change_smarter_state_nursing_home_reg.pdf (application/pdf Object)
ABSTRACT: The traditional nursing home regulatory approach, which uses survey and enforcement to achieve performance improvement, has created tensions between providers and surveyors. It has had limited success in improving quality overall and not necessarily allowed innovation to flourish. This has been the perception of many homes wanting to undergo transformative “culture change” reforms. To move toward a new model of nursing home regulation, the states and federal government must strike a balance between the traditional regulatory approach to weed out substandard facilities and a partnership model aimed at promoting high performance. This issue brief highlights the importance of how such a model is structured, as well as the need to adequately train and educate regulatory staff and providers about culture change. Regulators, providers, consumer groups, residents, and their families also will need to commit to the principles of person-centered care to ensure the success of the new collaborative approach….
Sunday, October 11, 2009
ADAPT Press Release: Atlanta Action
….."We're here in Atlanta to demand freedom from nursing homes and
institutions for people with disabilities and who are older," said Randy
Alexander, Organizer for Tennessee ADAPT. "Currently, Medicaid law is
biased in favor of forcing people into expensive nursing facilities and
other institutions, rather than mandating that people can choose to stay
at home with the assistance they need. As a result, hundreds of thousands
of older and disabled Americans have lost their homes and their freedom,
and have been virtually locked up for the crime of disability or age. It's
a violation of our civil rights!"……
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Your gateway to info about STOPPING FDA rubber stamp of ECT — MFI Portal
he US Food and Drug Administration wants to give the device used for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT or electroshock) a rubber stamp of approval without ever having investigated the device for safety or efficacy. Here's your gateway to the latest info about the campaign to say "no" to reclassification, how to take action, and background information.
Your gateway to info about STOPPING FDA rubber stamp of ECT — MFI Portal
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Elderly Mobility Challenges and Falling Out of Bed
Why Bed Rails Are Not Mobility Aids
…..Many bed falls are mobility related. The most common solutions were to confine the person or restrain them with bed rails, sometimes both. Today’s focus is on individual needs and keeping people mobile without confining or restraining them.
One myth is that the elderly fall out of bed because the bed rails are not raised. Yet we never hear what caused them to “fall out of bed” so informed decisions are rare. Exploring the reasons why the elderly and others fall out of bed will help us make better mobility decisions now, and in the future. Bed fall examples:
1. Accidental, rolled off the bed while reaching for a TV remote or glass of water on a night stand, usually an accident. Is this a balance or mobility issue, both or just an accident?……..
Nursing Home Industry: New Funding Reductions Will Force Closures
"The nation's nursing homes are perilously close to laying off workers, cutting services - possibly even closing - because of a perfect storm wallop from the recession and deep federal and state government spending cuts, industry experts say," The Associated Press reports. "A Medicare rate adjustment that cuts an estimated $16 billion in nursing home funding over the next 10 years was enacted at week's end by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services." This move came in addition to state-level reductions or flat-funding "that already had the industry reeling. And Congress is debating slashing billions more in Medicare funding as part of health care reform."……
New thinking about suburbs needed to help baby boomers age in place
……The Wall Street Journal article "Making Suburbia More Livable" offers several examples of communities that are redesigning suburbs so that boomers can age in place.
These communities are:
Making new street grids to reduce traffic and improve walkability.
Building town homes and condominiums.
Adding greenways and parks to promote social interaction.
Adding social spaces, shops, transportation options, and recreation and entertainment facilities to help address the needs of people as they grow older…….
Friday, October 2, 2009
Floridians Forced Into Nursing Homes Earn Settlement at PHInational.org
The state of Florida has agreed to spend up to $27 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by Medicaid recipients who argue they were forced into nursing homes.
The lawsuit was filed in early 2008 on behalf of approximately 8,500 elderly and disabled Medicaid recipients who allege that Florida’s Medicaid program made it prohibitively difficult to obtain funding for home- and community-based care. By doing so, they argued, Medicaid essentially coerced them into nursing homes…..
BuzzNet Tags: HCBS,lawsuit settlement
Floridians Forced Into Nursing Homes Earn Settlement at PHInational.org
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Briefs Examine Role of Evaluation for LTC Providers at PHInational.org
PHI has launched an issue brief series called Learning Through Evaluation examining the unique role evaluation plays in supporting PHI’s training and organizational development and policy work.
“Evaluation is an important tool to advance our learning and improve our work with providers of eldercare and disability services,” says Marcia Mayfield, PHI’s director of evaluation.
First Brief Now Available
The first issue brief in the evaluation series — Plan, Implement, Study, Act (pdf) — focuses on PHI’s work with the Northern New England LEADS Institute, an initiative aimed at improving job quality for direct-care workers in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
Briefs Examine Role of Evaluation for LTC Providers at PHInational.org
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Technology That Helps Seniors Stay at Home - BusinessWeek
Much More in the article……
As Baby Boomers retire, companies as varied as GE, Philips, and Nintendo are working on technology that helps seniors stay at home and remain independent
Slate's interactive guide to the Senate Finance committee markup on health reform. - By Timothy Noah and Chris Wilson - Slate Magazine
Are you REALLY into the health care reform debate?
The health reform bill (text, summary) introduced last week by Sen. Max Baucus, D- Mont., chairman of the Senate finance committee, is kind of a dog. The product of many months of negotiation among a bipartisan seven-member "coalition of the willing" (reduced to six after the defection of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah), it includes so many concessions to the GOP that at least three Democrats (Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington) are threatening not to vote for it. Yet the bill has not won the support of a single Republican.Slate's Chris Wilson, who sees opportunity where others see an ungainly data dump, assembled all these amendments into a single spreadsheet that can be sorted according to sponsor, party, budgetary offset, and whether the amendment in question addresses insurance coverage, reform of "delivery systems" (i.e., doctors and hospitals), or financing (taxes). (Some readers may need to log in to Gmail to view the sortable version. A low-fi version is available here.)
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
PASS THE COMMUNITY FIRST CHOICE AMENDMENT! : Center for Disability Rights : Free Our People
This is huge news! This past Friday, New York Senator Schumer introduced the Community First Choice amendment to the Senate Finance Committee’s health care reform!
This is the closest we’ve ever been to getting the language of the Community Choice Act into federal law. It’s not the “whole enchilada,” because it wouldn’t make it the law of the land, but it would give every state a financial incentive to try community first, consumer directed services and supports based on functional need, not age or diagnosis. This is a very big deal!
The next step is to urge the Senate Finance Committee to pass the amendment. We need every Senator on the Committee to hear from constituents in their state, urging them to support the Community First Choice Amendment…..
BuzzNet Tags: LTC,community choice
PASS THE COMMUNITY FIRST CHOICE AMENDMENT! : Center for Disability Rights : Free Our People
Monday, September 21, 2009
MIWatch - Thought parity was a done deal?
Celebrations of last year's landmark mental health parity legislation ending insurance and business discrimination were premature. What once seemed a turning point now seems less certain if the federal guidelines for implementation of the Wellstone-Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act are delayed beyond the Oct. 3 deadline. Such a delay could spell disaster for the 46 percent of the population whose treatment will be halted or never started, with lives lost, livelihoods delayed, but the status quo intact.
We should recall that parity was hotly debated before two bills (HR 1424 in the House, S 558 in the Senate) and were folded into last year's stimulus package. It was an initiative supported by a unique collaboration between advocates in the mental health community and those in the addiction community, with coverage extending to the self-insured and to those in Medicaid managed care. The House initiative, led by Reps. Patrick Kennedy and Jim Ramstad, wanted to base treatment criteria on the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Insurance and business were able to determine that the Senate's bill allow them to define "medical need."
This provision, allowing the insurance companies to manage medical conditions, mandated there be no discrimination against mental illnesses or addictive disorders. Yet, many companies are attempting to reduce what they are calling "medical necessity" and in this way are encouraging the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury to undermine the fact and the spirit of parity………
Classical conditioning in the vegetative and minimally conscious state : Abstract : Nature Neuroscience
Pavlovian trace conditioning depends on the temporal gap between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. It requires, in mammals, functional medial temporal lobe structures and, in humans, explicit knowledge of the temporal contingency. It is therefore considered to be a plausible objective test to assess awareness without relying on explicit reports. We found that individuals with disorders of consciousness (DOCs), despite being unable to report awareness explicitly, were able to learn this procedure. Learning was specific and showed an anticipatory electromyographic response to the aversive conditioning stimulus, which was substantially stronger than to the control stimulus and was augmented as the aversive stimulus approached. The amount of learning correlated with the degree of cortical atrophy and was a good indicator of recovery. None of these effects were observed in control subjects under the effect of anesthesia (propofol). Our results suggest that individuals with DOCs might have partially preserved conscious processing, which cannot be mediated by explicit reports and is not detected by behavioral assessment.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Text of S.1256 as Introduced in Senate: Home and Community Balanced Incentives Act of 2009 - U.S. Congress - OpenCongress
A bill to amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to establish financial incentives for States to expand the provision of long-term services and supports to Medicaid beneficiaries who do not reside in an institution, and for other purposes.
What is a Medicare “Never Event” in Nursing Home or Hospital
Medicare won’t pay for conditions “that could reasonably have been prevented.”
These preventable conditions, sometimes dubbed “never events,” i.e. events that should never have happened, may include:
• Bedsores or pressure ulcers not present on admission.
• Injuries caused by falls
• Infections caused by catheters left in blood vessels or bladders
• Sponges or other objects left in patients during surgery
• Incompatible blood transfusions
• Death from other blood products
• Misuse or malfunction of medical devices
• Wrong site surgeries.
• Restraint strangulation.
• Deaths from medications.
• Deaths from childbirth.
What is a Medicare “Never Event” in Nursing Home or Hospital
CDC - National Center for Health Statistics Homepage
The National Center for Health Statistics' website is a rich source of information about America's health... More
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Draft rule opens long-term care, leave programs to domestic partners (9/14/09) -- GovExec.com
Citing changing demands on families and the need to recognize diversity, the Office of Personnel Management proposed regulations on Monday opening up the long-term care insurance program and certain leave programs to the same-sex partners of gay and lesbian federal employees.
"With America's changing demographics and socioeconomic trends, employees have increasing personal needs and family care obligations," Jerome Mikowicz, deputy associate director at OPM's Center for Pay and Leave Administration, wrote in the draft leave regulation. "OPM believes it is important to address the needs of a more diverse workforce. By ensuring consistent policies within the federal government we set an example as the model employer of a diverse workforce."
Draft rule opens long-term care, leave programs to domestic partners (9/14/09) -- GovExec.com
Friday, September 11, 2009
Not Dead Yet News & Commentary: It's Suicide Prevention Week - Except for Old, Ill and Physically Disabled People
I'm not sure how many people are aware of this, but we are nearing the end of National Suicide Prevention Week (Sept. 6-12). In fact, today - September 10 - is World Suicide Prevention Day.Specifically, there is an appalling lack of voiced concern over the promotion of suicide in the populations of old, ill and physically disabled people. For the first few months of this year, there was nationwide coverage of the Final Exit Network - an organization that supports and facilitates the suicides of people with nonterminal disabilities and chronic conditions. Over the course of many months, stories appearing in countless outlets included the URL for the Final Exit Network in their stories. The website provided information on obtaining suicide instructional materials and how to get involved with the Final Exit Network. Most of the articles treated the Network and its "work" sympathetically.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Pain In People With Dementia Often Undiagnosed
The elderly who suffer from dementia aren't able to say when something hurts or is sore. They may demonstrate their pain through behaviours like rocking or striking out, and we often dismiss these actions as symptoms of the dementia instead of pain, which is usually from a different problem. Arthritis, diabetic neuropathy, fractures, muscular contractures, bruises, abdominal pain and mouth ulcers are among the list of common ailments that go undetected. It is important for those who live or work with persons with dementia to know how to identify when an elderly person is experiencing pain - and receive treatment sooner rather than later.
The University of Alberta's Cary Brown, PhD, has a new tool to help. She has developed an online workshop and toolkit for caregivers, health-care providers, family members and friends of people with dementia.
The researcher from the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine created an evidence-based website with a narrated presentation on pain and dementia, a downloadable resource pack for family members, a downloadable pain log and a facilitator's toolkit with background material, a planning guide, promotional material and supplemental information for organizations who wish to put on a workshop.
The online workshop and toolkit are available at: http://www.painanddementia.ualberta.ca