Questions: Caregiving

Aging is a team sport!

ChangingAging invites readers to submit questions about aging and caregiving in order to give our community opportunity to support each other and share personal experiences and wisdom. Readers should also do their own research and/or seek professional assistance before following any advice given here.

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In long-term care, the U.S. lags

Without much fanfare, the Senate Special Committee on Aging released a report earlier this month on the subject of how the U.S. is progressing in caring for older adults diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The committee compared health-care infrastructure with that of Japan, Australia, France and the United Kingdom – countries chosen because they have demographics and economies similar to ours.

The report found that these countries were all ahead of us on the Alzheimer’s care front. But as Judith Graham points out in a sharply observed piece today on the New Old Age blog, the study also unearthed statistics that suggest that long-term care for America’s elderly in general is lagging behind the rest of the world’s standards.

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Teaming Up On Healthcare

The New York Times has a great little article out about the Cleveland Clinic’s innovative team-based treatment. Instead of being bounced from specialist to specialist they have created a single team of specialists who work together.

In its most fundamental reform, the clinic in the past five years has created 18 “institutes” that use multidisciplinary teams to treat diseases or problems involving a particular organ system, say the heart or the brain, instead of having patients bounce from one specialist to another on their own.

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What Caregivers Don’t Tell Anyone

Caregiving | Home & Family | Your Life“Sally Abrahms can take her crown off now!” Ouch. That was one response to my story that recently ran in the AARP Bulletin explaining common emotions (guilt, grief, exhaustion) family caregivers have and strategies for dealing with them. I was writing about my own experience — I’m a long distance caregiver, not someone who lives 24/7 with a sick or chronically needy parent — as well as what I have observed from my work. That reader could have been less strident, …

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What Long-Term Care Costs (A Lot!)

Caregiving | Home & FamilyIf you’re considering long-term care, expect to pay more for nursing homes, assisted living communities and homemakers/companions, MetLife Mature Market Institute’s annual 2012 survey reveals. Good news: the study of average national long-term care costs shows they’ve stayed the same for adult day services and home health aides. Of course, rates and services vary by state and area; those differences are included in the survey. Take a look at national average costs: A private room in a nursing home is $248/day, …

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4 Must-Know Facts About Medicare Enrollment & Hurricane Sandy

Bulletin Today | Caregiving | Personal HealthMedicare beneficiaries: If you’ve been impacted by Hurricane Sandy and can’t meet the Dec. 7 annual open enrollment period deadline, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is offering other options. The best scenario is to select the Medicare plan you want for 2013 in time to ensure your health and prescription drug coverage kicks in by Jan. 1, 2013. But what if you can’t? If you can’t select a plan by Dec. 7  you can still enroll in …

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Five Avoidable Caregiver Mistakes

CaregivingTrend alert or rather, trend-to-be alert. I recently heard of a new concept that sounds like a caregiver’s dream: a team of professionals from various disciplines (i.e. legal, financial, caregiving) who specialize in aging issues. Someone on the team steers you to other experts you need — and may not even realize you need. These pros confer to make sure all your bases are covered. Rod Chamberlin, a financial planner in Irvine, California, has one such team. Besides a financial …

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Caregivers: Program to Target At-Home Care to Cut Back on Repeat Hospitalizations

CaregivingIt’s hard to find a more stunning statistic: Nearly 45 percent of hospitalizations among nursing home residents enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid are avoidable. Because of their complex and chronic health care needs, annual spending for their care is more than $300 billion. The total 2011 costs for avoidable hospitalizations for this group are $7 billion to $8 billion. Now the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has a plan to stanch the hemorrhaging of money and unnecessary hospital …

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Face the Facts: Family Caregivers Work

Caregiving | Home & Family | WorkHere we go again. More black-and-white confirmation that elder responsibilities often negatively impact both employees and companies. A new fact sheet out from the AARP Public Policy Institute, in chilling percentages, shows the enormity of the issue and the need to implement or enhance workplace programs. Let me lay it out. Here are the statistics I found particularly revealing: 61 percent of family caregivers age 50-plus work either full-time (50 percent) or part-time (11 percent). 42 percent of U.S. employees have …

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Educators and Mentors Unite in Florida

Eden Alternative Educators and Mentors came from all over the U.S. and Canada to St. Petersburg, Florida October 5 & 6, 2012 for our bi-annual face to face gathering. Many hot topics were discussed such as identifying new paradigms that need to be busted and the formation of a more focused Educator team. The Eden [...]

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New Eden Alternative Neighborhood Guides Come Out of Sewickley, PA Training

Two new organizations are stepping up to ensure that their neighborhood teams are successful. Care partners from St. John’s Home in Rochester, NY (Joanne Panarisi-Bottone, Kristine Angevine, and Karen Natoli) and Epworth Village in Oklahoma City, OK (Linda Crawford) attended The Eden Alternative’s new Neighborhood Guide Training at Masonic Village in Sewickley, PA during the [...]

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Caregivers Share Coping Ideas at Life@50 Event

Caregiving | Your LifeI’m jazzed about AARP’s annual Life@50+ member event going on this week in New Orleans. Attendees can exercise with Martina Navratilova, listen to all kinds of music, hear commentators  James Carville and Mary Matalin argue politics, and take in sessions on such meaningful topics as finance, work, scam artists, social media and happiness. I like to think the biggest attraction, at least so far, has been today’s session on caregiving — and not just because I was on the panel! The …

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Can Your Race Hamper Caregiving?

Caregiving | Home & FamilyWhat’s it like to be a family caregiver if you’re Hispanic or African American and your loved one has been hospitalized? “Invisible” is one of the words used to describe the experience. “Unprepared” for the enormous responsibilities (injections, tube feedings, wound care, complicated medical issues) post-hospital could be another. To compile the report, “Meeting the Needs of Diverse Caregivers,” just out from the AARP Public Policy Institute, researchers spoke with Hispanics (both English and Spanish speaking) and African Americans as well …