Health and Disability

Once a senior begins receiving long-term care services, she and her family often are in for two shocks. The first is that Medicare won’t pay beyond perhaps a few months after a hospitalization. The second is that while Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, may help, chances are it will only do so for nursing home residents.

Now, as part of the broader health reform debate, Congress may be about to make it easier for families to keep their loved ones at home, even if they are getting Medicaid. Under one plan, backed by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, states would have to offer the same access to home care as they do for nursing facilities. A second, more modest bill, sponsored by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, would make more disabled and frail elderly eligible for home care and provide extra federal funding for states that create generous home care programs. The “Empowered at Home Act,” which probably has a better chance than the Harkin bill, would not require states to offer these benefits.

Boosting Home Care: An Uphill Battle - Kaiser Health News

It sounds like a fantasy straight from The Truman Show: a house that monitors your every move, from bedside to bathroom and from medicine cabinet to fridge. The aim, however, is to help the elderly to lead safe and independent lives.

Researchers are working on a “health house” so sophisticated that it will not only track everyday habits but also check weight and blood pressure and predict whether a person is at risk of a serious fall.

Patient data, such as risks of hypertension, diabetes and respiratory problems, would be combined with information on daily routines to create an algorithm capable of identifying subtle health changes that might signal more serious problems.

‘Telemedicine’ house helps older people stay safe and independent - Times Online

Why is it that I can remember the lyrics of every awful ’70s pop tune I catch the merest snatch of while turning a radio dial, but not the name of the street two miles away? The answer is good news; that is, if you spend time with someone who has Alzheimer’s, dementia, or Parkinson’s Disease.

For a person with a neurological impairment, music can “stimulate a sense of identity as nothing else can,” says neurologist Oliver Sacks, who writes about the evocative powers of music in last year’s bestseller, Musicophilia, and in the November issue of O magazine.

Some ideas to try:

Heyday favorites. Unsure what the person has long liked (jazz, big band, classical)? Google “music era” with the decades during which the person was a teenager or in his or her 20s (1920s, 1940s, and so on).

Christmas carols. ‘Tis the season (so stores already tell us). Start with classics: Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Elvis, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Technorati Tags: LTC,Lewy Body Dementia

and many more suggestions……

11 Types of Music that Soothe Dementia « A Psychiatrist with Lewy Body Dementia (LBD)

Posted on June 16, 2009

By Terrie Lincoln, Systems Advocate

For several months, I’ve been polishing the story of my recovery from the accident that brought me into the world of disability. Until recently, I hadn’t talked much about this period of my life. The memories can still make me angry. The anger isn’t about my disability, though. The anger is about the doctors that didn’t think I would have a life worth living – and how hard my family had to fight to make sure I received the treatment I needed to survive…….

The full story is well worth reading. I have heard similar stories from other people with severe disabilities.  Another example of the same kind of medical thinking can occur

Technorati Tags: Not Dead yet,medical model,ethics

when a person with a significant disability goes into a hospital for elective surgery. The person is pestered on every shift to sign a DNR order.

Not Dead Yet News & Commentary: Terrie Lincoln: "How I DIDN'T Die" ( part 1)

Complex new Medicare rules that seek to cut costs of home-oxygen therapy are confusing the more than one million people who rely on the federal insurer to pay for the coverage.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the new rules “underline how complicated and difficult it will be to control Medicare costs,” a key part of President Barack Obama’s efforts to cut Medicare and Medicaid costs to help pay for a health-care overhaul. Under the new rules, "which began to affect patients on Jan. 1, Medicare will pay suppliers at its prevailing rate for the first three years after a patient begins coverage. Suppliers are then required to continue providing oxygen services to patients for another two years, but at a sharply reduced payment rate. After that, patients are entitled to receive new equipment and Medicare will resume paying suppliers at the higher rate. The changes, aimed at trimming costs for Medicare, have created problems for some patients who want to find a new source for their oxygen... Some suppliers are balking at accepting new patients who are approaching, or have already reached, Medicare's new three-year limit on full payments. That's because the companies would have to provide oxygen services for the next two years without getting much payment.”…………

New Medicare Rules On Oxygen Suppliers Worry Patients - Kaiser Health News

Frayed nerves were showing in the provider community Monday after President Obama announced his intentions Saturday to cut $313 billion more from Medicare and Medicaid over the next 10 years. The proposed new cuts are in addition to the $635 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending reductions already included in the president's FY 2010 budget, and include billions in potential payment reductions.
Nursing homes, long-term care hospitals and rehabilitation facilities, would see their share of Medicare and Medicaid money reduced by $14.4 billion over the next decade under Obama's new proposal

Obama opens the door for drastic new Medicare, Medicaid cuts for nursing homes - McKnight's Long Term Care News

Amazon.com: Mosby's Textbook for Long-Term Care Assistants - Text, Workbook, and Mosby's Nursing Assistant Video Skills - Student Version DVD 3.0 Package: Sheila A. Sorrentino RN MSN PhD, Bernie Gorek RNC GNP MA NHA, Relda T. Kelly RN BSN MSN, Mosby: Books

You've done your research and have decided that Long Term Care Insurance (LTCI) is right for you and your family. The next step is to become familiar with the basic structural components of an LTCI policy.

When building an LTCI policy there are four primary variables that must be considered. They are:

• daily benefit amount
• benefit period
• elimination period
• inflation protection

………

Technorati Tags: LTC insurance

Long Term Care Insurance - Understanding the Four Basic Components

The number of U.S. adults reporting a disability increased by 3.4 million between 1999 and 2005, according to a recent report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The most common causes of disability among adults in the United States are arthritis or rheumatism, back or spine problems, and heart disease.

That increase is part of a pattern, suggests study co-author Dr. Chad Helmick. "It is likely we will see more dramatic increases in the number of adults with a disability as the baby-boomer population begins to enter higher risk, older-age groups over the next 20 years."…….

Technorati Tags: LTC,disability rates

New Disability Figures Show Sharp Rise in Numbers

….."a group of Democratic senators on Thursday urged the Labor Department to reverse a Bush administration policy by extending federal wage and hour laws to home health care workers. Most domestic workers are covered by laws governing minimum wage and overtime pay, but home workers that care for the elderly and disabled have long been considered exempt. The 15 lawmakers - led by Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin - say the growing number of full-time home care workers serving an aging population deserve the same workplace rights as other employees." The AP notes that Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1974 to cover household workers, but exempted baby sitters and companions for the ill or elderly, and that the Supreme Court upheld the Labor Department's interpretation of the law to exclude home care workers two years later: "At her confirmation hearing earlier this year, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis indicated a willingness to consider rules that would expand the law to all home care workers. But the agency has not yet issued any notice of proposed rules on the issue."……

Technorati Tags: LTC,home care,community-based,DCW,wages

Lawmakers Want Federal Rules To Cover Home Health Care Workers And End-Of-Life Care