There is a new article on Yahoo Health that we found and thought that you might find very interesting and useful.
Check it out: http://health.yahoo.net/experts/allinyourmind/5-ways-cut-your-risk-dementia#.Tx2bWjbT1b4.email
The More You Are Involved, the Better the Healthcare
AARP has published to results of a study about the effect of patient involvement in their own care. Involvement means having studied about the medical condition, the medications prescribed and having a grasp of the potential problems and solutions.
It seems like an obvious conclusion, but the magnitude of the difference is striking.
Those who are less involved are:
- Twice as likely to be readmitted to the hospital
- Twice as likely to experience a medical error
- Three times as likely to have poor coordination between providers
- Four times as likely to suffer a consequence due to poor coordination
- Four times as likely to lose confidence in the healthcare
If your elder gets a new diagnoses or goes into the hospital you need to go to work and learn about what is happening. Get online, the information you need is there, Google it! Write down your questions to ask the doctor or the hospital staff. Be sure you can also give each care provider all of the information about your elder. You need to take on the role of information coordinator. Assume each person involved with providing care is not aware of what the other providers have done. You may find that sadly your assumption is probably true.
Work on this as if their life depended on it, because too often it does.
caregivertips@elderissues.com
The standard Medicare Part B premium for 2012 will be $99.90 a month-the result of a lower-than-expected increase of $3.50 a month for most Beneficiaries. Despite fears that next year’s premium increase could eat up the 3.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in Social Security checks in 2012, only a small fraction of beneficiaries will have that problem, officials said. “The typical retired worker will have nearly $40 more per month in their pockets next year,” said Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. The annual deductible for part B, which covers doctors’ visits and outpatient services, will drop from $162 to $140. Over the past two years, about 75 percent of beneficiaries have paid monthly Part B premiums of $96.40-the same as they paid in 2009-because there was no Social Security COLA in 2010 and 2011 and therefore by law their premiums were frozen. So anyone who paid $96.40 a month this year will pay $3.50 a month more this year. But certain groups of beneficiaries paid monthly premiums of $110.50 will save $10.60 a month, and those paying $115.40 will save $15.50. In addition, people who must pay the higher-income premiums will also see a drop ranging from $21.60 to $49.40 a month, according to income level. – Patricia Barry
(aarp.org/bulletin)
About 200 advocates for the elderly and the poor jammed a public hearing in Orlando on Thursday to voice concerns about Florida’s proposed Medicaid overhaul –echoing the same reaction seen at public hearings throughout the state.
Although representatives from several HMOs offered examples of how they have coordinated care for patients and saved lives, most of the people at the hearing criticized the state’s plans to move most Medicaid recipients into managed-care plans.
“Managed care works if you’re well. It does not work if you have complex health problems,” said Amy O’Rourke of the Cameron Group, a professional geriatric-care management company based in Orlando. “I have 13,000 elders, and I have not seen one managed-care program work for elders with complex care.”
Thursday’s hearing was the 10th in a series of 11 public hearings organized by the Agency for Health Care Administration during the past week. The state agency is gathering comments from Medicaid consumers, families and others about the state’s Medicaid proposal before submitting the plan to the federal government.
The public comments are to be forwarded to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where officials must approve Florida’s proposed changes because they require a waiver of federal Medicaid rules. State agency officials said they plan to turn in the waiver request Aug. 1
In Orlando, advocates for the poor also warned that the state has based its Medicaid makeover on a five-year pilot project that was riddled with problems.
The new Medicaid managed-care program “will be built on the incredibly shaky foundation of the reform pilot of the last five years,” said Greg Mellowe of Florida CHAIN, a statewide advocacy organization focused on health-care issues. “You can imagine the uproar that would occur of a pharmaceutical company began selling a new medication without bothering to finish the trials. That’s what is happening here.”
Throughout the state, the hearings have been magnets for critics of the new plan. In West Palm Beach, more than 200 people packed an auditorium, where elder-law attorneys warned that the new Medicaid program would reward managed-care companies for moving senior citizens out of nursing-home care
And at a public hearing in Fort Lauderdale, Broward County Medicaid patients begged state health officials Thursday not to expand the managed-care program they say failed miserably in their county and prevented them from getting medications and doctor appointments, The Associated Press reported.
Yet Robinson Johnson, a registered nurse and certified case manager for Wellcare, told the Orlando audience how she coordinated care for patients and sometimes persuaded managers to make exceptions to get her HMO patients specialized care. “I haven’t ever heard, ‘We can’t do that,’ ” she said. “There’s another face to managed care: It’s people like me who really, really care about the [patient].”
Linda Solash-Reed, an attorney affiliated with the Florida Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, criticized the new law because she said no data prove it would save money. Worse, she said, the state has no evidence that the new program would work for senior citizens because they were not included in the original pilot project.
“No data, wrong data and bad data spells disaster for Florida taxpayers,” Solash-Reed said.
If approved, the state’s Medicaid managed-care program would be phased in, but the first group to be moved into managed care would be seniors in long-term care. The long-term care program would be fully implemented by October 2013, while the managed care for other Medicaid beneficiaries is scheduled to be fully implemented by October 2014, according to the state agency.
Although Sen. Joe Negron, one of the architects of the state’s Medicaid makeover, on Wednesday urged tea-party members to show up and express their support for the plan, it did not appear tea-party proponents attended the Orlando hearing. Negron has defended the Medicaid plan, saying that charges of “grant dumping” are scare tactics.
The public can also submit written comments by email to cynthis.mann@cms.hhs.gov or FLMedicaidManagedCare@ahca.myflorida.com, or letters can be sent to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Center for Medicaid and State Operations, 7500 Security Blvd., Mail Stop S2-01-16, Baltimore, MD 21244-1850
Andrew Doughman contributed to this report. lshrieves@tribune.com or 407-420-5433What do think about the idea of making a tradidtiontional nursing home a place looks nothing like a nursing home, a place where residents feel little reason to leave? Toni Davis, director of the Green Hill Retirement Community in West Orange, N.J., along with two dozen other nursing home directors, are trying to build this idea. They have been remodeling their traditional nursing homes with new floor plan, added fixures, and a whole new care plan system. They want to bring the comfort, the home-like feeling to senior residents; and they are very successful.
We came across this interested article and would like to share.
Inspired by an Orlando Sentinel guest editorial, join us for a discussion of how the psycholgical notion of “anti-aging” denies our past and invalidates our future, thus preventing us from embracing who we are now.
- A light lunch will be served -
Presenters:
Amy Cameron O’Rourke
President, The Cameron Group
Robert Bernstein
Orlando Sentinel, Guest editorial writer
Cost: Institute members $10
Nonmembers $15
Thursday, December 1
11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Library Community Room
Winter Park Public Library
460 E. New England Ave.
Registration Requested: register online or all 407-623-3279
Memberships Available: institute members do not pay most program fees and receive other valuable benefits as well. call 407-623-3279 for more information
Jane Gross, a former New York Times reporter and the author of “A Bitter Sweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents- and Ourselves” posted her opinion about Medicare in the New York Times this past weekend. She tells her own story of her mother’s journey and discover, along the way, that Medicare doesn’t pay for what most people need or want.
Recently, Amy was featured as the ElderCare Expert on ElderCare Matters. Read her article about Late Life. “Watching a parent grow older, become more frail and maybe more vulnerable can be an enriching experience when there is a framework for understanding the stage they are in…”
Caregiving can be stressful on families. We found this article this past weekend in the New York Times and wanted to share it with you. For those providing care for a loved one, this article has some good tips.
Easing The Stress of Daily Care-Giving
by Eilene Zimmerman The New York Time August 28, 2011 Q. You find yourself having to care for an ill family member while holding down a full-time job. How can you handle both of these demanding duties without feeling overwhelmed?A. Caregivers often feel they have one choice: quit their jobs and become full-time caregivers or keep working but do an inadequate job of meeting the needs of their ailing family member, says Denise M. Brown, founder of Caregiving.com, an online resource and forum for family caregivers. Fortunately, she says, it’s not nearly that cut and dried.
As you look for solutions, don’t be afraid to ask your employer for help. Ms. Brown suggests tapping into your company’s employee assistance paln or looking into work/life benefits that the company may offer. Those often include the services of a geriatric care manager who can research and coordinate care in the community where you need it.
You might also talk to your human resources department about taking some weeks off through the Family and Medical Leave Act. “Sometimes just taking two weeks off allows you to get a care plan in place and makes it much easier to get back to work,” Ms. Brown says.
Q. Should you talk to your manager and colleagues about the situation?
A. “We encourage people to let their close colleagues and manager know about the situation,” says Andy Cohen, C.E.O. of Caring.com, a Web site that provides information, forums and local resources for caregivers. More than 40 million Americans are caring for someone over age 50, so chances are someone else at your office is facing a similar situation, Mr. Cohen says.
Explain to your boss what’s happening with your loved one and how you plan to deal with it. Before the meeting, assess your current workload and responsibilities and determine what steps need to be taken for you to meet your job requirements and ensure that co-workers and clients aren’t negatively affected, says Faun Zarge, a work and life consultant based in Newton, Mass.
“Present a plan to your boss that outlines how you will manage your day-to-day responsibilities along with your care-giving responsibilities,” she says. “Consider how tasks critical to your team and the organization will get done if you are out.”
Keep one or two colleagues up-to-date on projects in which you’re involved, so that if you have to leave unexpectedly someone can step in for you.
Q. It’s likely that you’ll have to take phone calls at work or leave midday for doctor appointments or emergencies. How should you handle this?
A. Be honest with your manager about the amount and type of flexibility you will need, so you aren’t trying to sneak around or cover up phone calls and absences. “That will actually allow you to maintain or improve your performance, because you won’t be distracted and stressed by the care-giving tasks on your plate, “ says Ms. Zarge.
It’s also crucial to check in with your manager regularly to make sure your flexible schedule and coverage arrangements are working. Send an e-mail every few weeks to your manager and those colleagues helping you, to thank them for their support and gauge how things are going.
“Ask them: ‘Is there anything we need to adjust to make the plan work more smoothly?’ You want to make sure that at any point, if things aren’t working well, they know they should tell you,” says Ms. Zarge.
Q. Being a caregiver can be enormously stressful. What can you do about that?
A. Exercise is a good way to reduce stress hormones and cause the release of endorphins, biochemicals that relieve pain and cause a feeling of well-being, according to Debbie Mandel, a stress management consultant and author of “Changing Habits: The Caregivers’ Total Workout.” It’s also important to eat right, get enough sleep and keep up hobbies that make you happy.
Get some help by looking for volunteers at your house of worship or advertise for help from college or graduate students majoring in subjects like psychology, geriatric care or social work, Ms. Mandel says. They can visit and spend time with your loved one.
“These students need the internship experience,” she says. “They can provide some stimulation to that family member and in return, they get a letter or recommendation from you for their work.”
There are many support groups and forums for caregivers that provide advice and understanding, Mr. Cohen says. Contact your local Area Agency on Aging for resources close to you and use sites like Caring.com and AARP.org, for online support.
Try not to feel resentful about your situation. Don’t ask “why me” because there is no answer, says Ms. Mandel, who cared for her parents — both of whom had Alzheimer’s disease — while working full time.
“Everyone gets hit with problems in their lives. Let go of the past and thinking about what you once had and live in the present instead,” she says.
Keep in mind that just remaining on the job can provide stress relief. Doing your job — and doing it well — gives you a break from all the care-giving, says Ms. Mandel, and “lets you tap into your larger identity.”
In this follow up to part one we will discuss how the body begins to shut down and prepare for death, the financial forms and paperwork that are required after someone passes away, and the grief and mourning process that all of us go through after losing a loved one.