Health and Disability

http://goo.gl/xXsjE

Unfrazzle, the smartphone app designed to reduce the stress of caring for others by making it easy to remember, keep track of, and share caregiving tasks while staying in-sync with family members, is now available in the Apple App Store. The initial version is free and an Android version will be available soon.

Caregivers using Unfrazzle define what tasks to include and how much detail is needed. Anything they deem important can be on their tracking list. Tasks can include medications, chores, therapies, appointments...anything.

http://goo.gl/DU5Ei

Hospitalization for surgery or critical illness can lead to cognitive dysfunction in some patients, especially the elderly. This is often reported as inattention, disorganized thinking, altered consciousness and prolonged disruptions in learning and memory functions. The mechanisms whereby surgery and/or anesthesia may lead to cognitive impairment remain unclear, but the researchers behind the current study have previously demonstrated that inflammation and release of pro-inflammatory molecules, like cytokines, play an important role in causing brain inflammation and cognitive decline after surgery. 

http://goo.gl/ZWU3K

Caring for a sick, aging or dying loved one is not easy, yet millions of Americans do it.CareSolver, a Web-based tool developed by the Harvard Innovation Lab, is attempting to relieve some of the stress and burnout experienced by caregivers by organizing, coordinating and managing care plans.

I got a WOT warning for the site, but I looked at it and couldn't see a problem with it. Apparently, the Harvard Innovation Team bought a domain that had previously been used by a bot. There were also good reviews of the usefulness of the site on WOT, and this comment.

"Hi there. We're the CareSolver team, and we're a healthcare based startup designed to make caregiving easier.

It seems we had the misfortune of purchasing a domain that had previously acquired a bad reputation. We're a totally different group from whoever the last owners might have been, and not affiliated in any way. We purchased the domain (it was available openly) late last year (2012).

Well, no opportunity like the present to check us out again. Our tools are entirely free, so feel free to give us a try, and we're happy to answer any questions that the community might have about us!"

http://goo.gl/3rdmg

Charles R. Babcock with Bloomberg News recently explained part of the reason why hospitals bristle at this data:

The hospital industry argued against adding the statistics to Hospital Compare from the beginning, contending the data, culled from Medicare billing records, aren’t precise enough and can paint inaccurate pictures.

So now, rather abruptly, CMS is changing course. Here’s more from Babcock’s story:

Now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is planning to strip the site of the eight hospital-acquired conditions, which include infections and mismatched blood transfusions, while it comes up with a different set. The agency said it’s taking the step because some of the eight are redundant and because an advisory panel created by the 2010 Affordable Care Act recommended regulators use other gauges.

http://goo.gl/8wys5

Among intensive care unit patients receiving acute ventilatory support for respiratory failure, use of patient-preferred music resulted in greater reduction in anxiety and sedation frequency and intensity compared with usual care, according to a study published online by JAMA. The study is being released early online to coincide with its presentation at the American Thoracic Society international conference.

These drugs are so commonly used

http://goo.gl/fvWKk

Research from the Regenstrief Institute, the Indiana University Center for Aging Research and Wishard-Eskenazi Health on medications commonly taken by older adults has found that drugs with strong anticholinergic effects cause cognitive impairment when taken continuously for as few as 60 days. A similar impact can be seen with 90 days of continuous use when taking multiple drugs with weak anticholinergic effect. 

List of commonly used AC drugs

These costs seem to be essentially nursing home costs plus hospitalizations

http://goo.gl/CCgJi

A study published April 3 in the New England Journal of Medicine that tracked elderly adults found dementia can represent a significant financial burden not only on individual families but society at large. Researchers determined the annual costs associated with a patient with dementia were between $41,689 and $56,290. That added up to between $159 billion and $215 billion in American health care dollars, $11 billion of which is paid for by Medicare, the study found.

http://goo.gl/VprwB

In Britain today, around 4 million people can expect to suffer from chronic lower back pain at some point in their lives. The latest work suggests that more than half a million of them would benefit from antibiotics.

"This will not help people with normal back pain, those with acute, or sub-acute pain – only those with chronic lower back pain," Dr Hanne Albert, of the Danish research team, told the Guardian. "These are people who live a life on the edge because they are so handicapped with pain. We are returning them to a form of normality they would never have expected."

Kathleen, MDRC Staff,  has issued a set of documents as part of her health care collaboration that outline important dates in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and discussions of important policy issues for Michigan in the future.

The files are stored in a Shared Dropbox folder:

Updates on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act

http://goo.gl/hxGCm

"All-cause dementia" refers to all dementia syndromes, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease, accounting for 60 to 80 percent of all dementia cases. Alzheimer's disease is associated with memory problems and apathy in early stages, and impaired judgment, confusion, disorientation, behavior changes, and difficulty speaking in later stages. Vascular dementia is the second most common cause of dementia, and is associated with impaired judgment or ability to plan and complete tasks, as opposed to memory loss that is common in early stages of Alzheimer's.