Health and Disability

Matching service registries — which help connect consumers who want to self-direct their home care to compatible personal care aides — could prove to be a valuable building block under the CLASS Plan, according to a new PHI study, which is the first to focus on the workforce issues raised by CLASS.

The CLASS (Community Living Assistance Services and Supports) Plan, the new voluntary long-term care insurance program created under national health reform, requires states to ensure “adequate infrastructure for the provision of personal care attendant workers.”

The mental disruption that comes with being hospitalized can cause temporary memory loss for up to a month for seniors who are sick, according to new research.

This is imperative for caregivers to realize, said investigators at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Hospital-induced memory loss could affect how they remember discharge instructions and other critical information, they note.

By the end of the study, 180 people had Alzheimers. And those whose life-space narrowed in on their immediate home were almost twice as likely to develop the condition as those who ventured out. The homebound folks also had an increased risk of other cognitive impairments and a faster rate of cognitive decline. The research was published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Perhaps an indicator of where we feel comfortable, how much unpredictability we can tolerate.

The other day I was driving along Interstate-205 near historic Oregon City where the early 19th century explorers Lewis and Clark (1803-05) came through on their way to the Pacific Ocean.

Fifteen miles outside of the Portland city center the Willamette river parallels the highway and the majestic Willamette falls can be seen from the road. This was an area of the river where multiple tribes of Native Americans once fished the turbulent waters for salmon.

Taking this all in with my eyes shifting between driving and scanning the terrain, I noticed all the new construction of generously sized homes perched on the surrounding hill tops.

Admiring (and envying) the vantage point of these homes with their views of snow-covered Mt. Hood and the river, I began to wonder what it might be like to live in them, say… 20 years from now.

I do not want to die. This sentiment hardly makes me unusual. What does make me different is I have a legitimate worry. I worry someone will decide to kill me. I do not think someone will kill me maliciously, for spite, or hate. I worry someone will kill me with kindness in their heart. I am not paranoid. I know more than a few other people with a disability that have the same worry. Like it or not, people with a disability are not valued. Our lives are deemed tragic. Social expectations are limited at best. No one expects us to have a job, be a parent, or live a vibrant life. No, our role is to get well. For me, that means I should spend all my time thinking about walking. I should go from doctor to doctor to make this happen, subject myself to experimental stem cell treatment. If I did this I would be lauded as courageous. I consider efforts for cure to spinal cord injury an abject waste of my time. I can happily leave that quest to medical researchers. Instead, I rail against social prejudice and the stigma that clings to disability 20 years after the ADA supposedly made me equal to my bipedal peers. Of one thing I am sure, in daily life and in particular a hospital setting I am very far from equal.

This study found that the pharmacy-based calendar card dispensing system and coordinating service, which was designed to facilitate medication adherence, can reduce medication management issues, address problems as they arise, and reduce nursing home admissions of community dwelling, nursing home-eligible patients. With nearly 1.5 million residents in nursing homes, the widespread implementation of a medication management system could potentially save the healthcare system billions of dollars per year by avoiding unnecessary nursing home admissions.

Neuros Medical, Inc., a medical device company, announced promising results today from their recently completed feasibility study. The study was the first human test of the Company's patented high frequency Electrical Nerve Block™ technology and focused on patients with chronic amputation pain which affects nearly one million patients in the U.S. During the study, four of the five patients reported their pain was reduced to zero.

Study participant Darren W. said, "My pain was gone, something I have not experienced since my amputation. I was able to sleep completely through the night, my first pain-free sleep in several years."

Opiate free pain relief. A real breakthrough if it holds up.

Members of California's aging lesbian, gay and bisexual population are more likely to suffer from certain chronic conditions, even as they wrestle with the challenges of living alone in far higher numbers than the heterosexual population, according to new policy brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Instead of automatically deciding what should happen in a particular encounter with a person with dementia, we need to tune into the moods of the person and go with it.  As the author mentions, if someone wants an experience that gives them joy, we should give it.  They use the example of a client wanting to bathe at 2 am and they encouraged it. Sounds so simple but then why is that so hard to do?

We identify "sweet spots" where technology seems relevant to human need, envision ways in which technology could address those needs, then design, build, and test solutions.