Health and Disability

Thanks and a hat tip to Kathryn Wyeth…. 

From the country that brought the world George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four comes a new, friendlier kind of Big Brother. This one is here to help people with memory loss live on their own longer. Engineers at the Bath Institute of Medical Engineering (BIME), at Bath University in England have designed and tested an integrated system that not only monitors people's actions, but can speak to them, contact help, turn off appliances and faucets, and even e-mail family and caretakers.

Technorati Tags: LTC,AT,assistive technology

 
"The whole objective is to enable people to stay at home as long as they can," says Bruce Carey-Smith, a BIME design engineer. The system reports the wealth of information it collects—from potential problems to successful interventions—to health care providers. "It's about supporting—not about replacing—the role of care staff," Carey-Smith says.

"Smart" devices may help dementia sufferers remember to shut off stove, live at home longer : Scientific American Blog

This site includes 7 videos by Nick that are anti-institution, pro community living blog entries. The latest is a great video mashup of ADAPT and the recent CCA rally. The others in the series are blog entries by Nick who is in an institution.

Amazing stuff! W

ell worth seeing.

Fighting For The Community Choice Act on Vimeo

"Medical bills are involved in more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just six years, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday," according to Reuters. The researchers found that "more than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts." Most of them were "well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations," the researchers from Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University wrote in the American Journal of Medicine………

Technorati Tags: bankruptcy,medical bills

Study: Medical Bills Underlie 60 Percent Of U.S. Bankruptcies - Kaiser Health News

Key findings include the following:

• In 2008, most respondents (42%) said that if they required LTC, they expected to live at home and have an aide for a few hours each day. This proportion increased slightly (49%) in 2009 as a result of the economic downturn.
• In 2008, 29% said they never thought about or did not know where they would receive LTC services; in 2009, this figure dropped to 22%.
• About half of respondents (51%) said they feel very or fairly prepared to financially deal with a situation in which they would suddenly require LTC for an indefinite period of time, while more than four in ten said they are not very (18%) or not at all prepared (25%).
• Older respondents (age 65+) and those with higher incomes (over $25,000 annually) were more likely to say they feel financially prepared for LTC than their counterparts.
• Men were more likely than women to say they never thought about or did not know where they would receive LTC services (in 2008, 36% versus 23%; in 2009, 27% versus 18%).

+ Full Report (PDF; 292 KB)

Docuticker » Blog Archive » Perceptions of Long-term Care and the Economic Recession

Last October we wrote about Millvina Dean, the last living survivor of the Titanic.  She had to sell her Titanic treasures so she could afford long-term care.  Ms. Dean died this weekend at 97.  Below is video of an interview she gave last October.

Last Titanic Survivor Dies - Sold Her Treasures to Pay for Long-Term Care » Changing Aging - Ecumen

The National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) serves as the authoritative voice for improved patient outcomes in pressure ulcer prevention and treatment through public policy, education and research.

Technorati Tags: LTC,pressure sores,decubitus

National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP)

When President Obama announced May 11 that six leading healthcare industry groups would band together to reduce healthcare costs by $2 trillion over the next decade, many were skeptical. On Monday, however, those groups submitted their proposals—and one has suggested changing care delivery in the long-term care field.
One of the six groups, the Service Employees International Union, which is the largest single representative of healthcare workers in the U.S., told the Obama administration that it would pursue cost savings through expanded home- and community-based services. Additional federal funding for HCBS through Medicaid would limit institutional costs and potentially save $43 billion over 10 years, according to the SEIU proposal. Another avenue for savings in the area of long-term care could be expanded Medicare nursing home value-based purchasing, SEIU also suggested.

SEIU recommends changes to long-term care as way to reduce healthcare costs - McKnight's Long Term Care News

The purpose of this white paper is to review the
currently available scientific evidence related to
nutrition and hydration for pressure ulcer
prevention and treatment in adults; introduce the
nutrition recommendations from the new
National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel
(NPUAP)-European Pressure Ulcer Advisory
Panel (EPUAP) Guidelines for Pressure Ulcer
Treatment; and review research needs for the
future.
Overview of Pressure Ulcers: Prevalence,………

Nutrition White Paper Website Version.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Sleep disturbances increase as we age. Some studies report more than half of seniors 65 years of age or older suffer from chronic sleep disturbances. Researchers have long believed that the sleep disturbances common among the elderly often result from a disruption of the body's circadian rhythms - biological cycles that repeat approximately every 24 hours.
In recent years, scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center and elsewhere have demonstrated that blue light is the most effective at stimulating the circadian system when combined with the appropriate light intensity, spatial distribution, timing, and duration. A team at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) has tested a goggle-like device designed to deliver blue light directly to the eyes to improve sleep quality in older adults. ……

Light-Treatment Device Developed To Improve Sleep Quality In The Elderly

Americas Watchdog has created the Nursing Home Abuse Center to go after nursing homes that abuse their patients, and wants to assist law firms that also have an interest in Medicare-Medicaid fraud, Class actions, and employee wage and hour issues. According to the group, "we want to team up with larger personal injury law firms in specific cities, where we know nursing home abuse, Medicare or Medicaid fraud, and employee wage, and hour issues are rampant, to put a big dent in the problem." Personal Injury Law Firms, class action law firms, or employment law firms that might have an interest in this are welcome to call the group at 866-714-6466, or visit their web site at Http://NursingHomeComplaintCenter.Com………

Americas Watchdog Creates The Nursing Home Complaint Center To Team Up With Personal Injury Law Firms To Do Some Good