Health and Disability

A guardian is appointed by the court to "guard" finances and make care decisions for an elderly person who has nobody else to help. Most people think once the court steps in, the person is protected, and safe. 

But instead of helping, the guardian drains the person's bank account. What's worse, the court gives its stamp of approval. How could this be happening? 

 According to GAO investigators, and investigators from the office of Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI), it's the result of unscrupulous actors; piecemeal regulations from state-to-state; and poor oversight. 

Former Arenac County Public Guardian Sherilyn Jones has been sentenced to three years and four months to 20 years in prison, and ordered to pay $300,649.16 in restitution for criminal enterprise and racketeering.

Jones was sentenced by 23rd Circuit Court Judge William Myles Wednesday, Dec. 8.

The Michigan State Police conducted an investigation last year that uncovered that $300,000 was misappropriated from approximately 50 clients, during the years 1999 to 2009.

Another public guardian disaster.

Young people ages 31 to 64 now make up 14 percent of the nursing home population, an analysis of federal data from the Department of Health and Human Services by NPR's Investigative Unit found. That's up from 10 percent just 10 years ago.

The data do not show why this age group is entering nursing homes in such higher numbers, but Michelle Fridley's fight to stay out of a nursing home may provide a clue.

Thanks and a hat tip to Salli.

Practices for protecting human research subjects with Alzheimer's disease and other conditions that make them incapable of giving informed consent are widely variable and in need of more concrete ethical and legal guidance, according to a study in IRB: Ethics & Human Research.

If you ever visit Martin Luther King Jr.'s gravesite in Atlanta, turn around and look across the street at the nursing home in a red brick building. If you look through a big plate-glass window to the left of the front door, you may just see Rosa Hendrix in her wheelchair looking out at you.

Every day, she sits at the window and watches the visitors paying their respects at the civil rights leader's grave. But Hendrix, 87, is fighting her own civil rights battle: to continue her life in her own home.

Answers to those niggling questions about Alzheimer's and dementia are published in a new FAQ section on the Alzheimer's Society website.

The new section of the website aims to answer many of those questions that carers and people living with dementia may not find easy to ask others about, such as coping with incontinence, frustration and loneliness.

One out of every seven hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries experiences an “adverse event,” which means the patient is harmed as a result of medical care. That’s according to a study released today [1] by the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general.

The “adverse events” contribute to an estimated 15,000 patient deaths [2] each month and add at least $4.4 billion [3] to the government’s annual Medicare expenses, the report projected. These findings were based on a nationally representative random sample taken from the nearly 1 million Medicare beneficiaries discharged from hospitals in October 2008.

We have been given a great opportunity - under the historic Affordable Care Act - to create the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.

The ultimate goal of the Innovation Center is to explore new approaches to the way we pay for and deliver care to patients so that we have better results both in terms of the quality of care and the affordability of coverage. Congress has charged this new CMS Center with identifying, testing and ultimately spreading new ways of delivering care and new ways of paying for care.

Medicare open enrollment kicks off today, bringing changes to seniors' health and drug plans.

The folks at Moody’s Investors Service, the big credit-rating agency, took a look at the impact of reimbursement cuts in the federal health-care law could have on the companies it covers. And they found that the cuts could pose an enormous credit risk for some health-care companies. See the Dow Jones Newswires story here.

Home health, oxygen, DME, hospice, nursing homes are all targets for cuts.