Comments for ChangingAging.org

Comment on President Gets On Right Side of History With Marriage Equality by Robert Peacock

Robert Peacock — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:32:00 +0000

@kavan You are very welcome, and Congratulations on having a son join your family.
Thanks again for the work you do, keep on keepin’ on.
Bob.

Comment on President Gets On Right Side of History With Marriage Equality by kavan

kavan — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:41:15 +0000

@Robert Peacock Bob, thanks so much for commenting and sharing your story. I remember your case well and I’m honored that you are part of our ChangingAging community. I would have responded sooner to your comment but I recently celebrated a new edition to my family — a son! Best wishes to your family and thanks again for commenting.

Comment on President Gets On Right Side of History With Marriage Equality by Robert Peacock

Robert Peacock — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:05:47 +0000

Kavan, Bill and all at ChangingAging.org. Thank you for your comments about President Obama. I am not an American, but love the Eden philosophy and the ChangingAging.org site. I am a gay man who has been in a monogamous relationship for 44 years.
I have been legally married to my spouse Lloyd for 8 years here in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. We were one of the couples who were litigants against the Government to grant us (no not grant) give us the rights that were ours to begin with. I too am concerned about what might happen in the USA with especially older gay Elders who have no support and who are still in the closet in different types of care facilities throughout North American and the World. All Leaders should come out against any sort of discrimination against any person. That is why they are elected to be there for ‘ALL PEOPLE’. Thank you again for your great Editorials and for this site. Such a job well done.
Bob and Lloyd Peacock.

Comment on I Need Help by sallyh50

sallyh50 — Sun, 06 May 2012 23:06:37 +0000

Hi Bill
Have been to a book launch today, Monday 7th May with Alzheimers Australia Vic, AUSTRALIA for activities for people living with dementia. whilst there I discovered that they have a book, written by a gentleman who’s wife was diagnosed with dementia at 52. The book is called “Remember me, Mrs V?”, written by Tom Valenta printed in 2007. Started reading it today and it is a book about 14 different families who have a loved one living with dementia. This could be a source for your friend. As the reviewer says, it is easy to read. This book can be reviewed at the following link.
https://www.chf.org.au/pdfs/ahc/ahc-2006-3-review-remember-me.pdf

Alzheimers Australia also have a lot of information for people diagnosed with AD and lots of fact sheets. The people from Alzheimers Australia also recommended that all the family and friends need to get involved as early as possible to understand what is happening and potentially what can happen to their loved one in the future.
Hope that this helps Sally H, Eden in Oz & NZ
facebook.com/edenoznz

Comment on I Need Help by LoriLaBey

LoriLaBey — Thu, 03 May 2012 03:23:51 +0000

@Martibailey I would love to get more specific information to add to my resource list of memory support groups. Can we connect offliine? I’m on linkedin are you?

Comment on I Need Help by Martibailey

Martibailey — Thu, 03 May 2012 03:12:46 +0000

In DC we have formed Club Memory, a social group with people and care partners who have MCI or diagnosis of early stage dementia (any form). We’ve been doing it since last September and it seems to be meeting a need as we have been steadily growing. The group meets for lunch or other things outside of the formal context and supportive relationships are the result. It helps when the person and care partner who have a new diagnosis have people to talk to that have “been there.”

Comment on Baltimore Answers Skilled-Nursing Care Shortage With Groundbreaking Green House Project at Stadium Place by acmanor

acmanor — Thu, 03 May 2012 02:52:45 +0000

Great Blog post… Excellent advice. Thank you Nursing Homes West Union OH.

Comment on I Need Help by LoriLaBey

LoriLaBey — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:09:21 +0000

HI Bill,
I would suggest 2 groups on facebook:
Memory People – started by Rick Phelps who has early onset. The group is a closed group which mean posts will not show up on your home page only within the group. There are people with dementia, care partners both family and professionals, as well as advocates on the site. Great discussion s and advice from those in the trenches with the disease. Support in a community fashion is available pretty much 24/7 as it connects people all over the world.
Memory Keepers- Started by Maryann is a great group as well. It’s for spouses & partners caring for their loved with memory loss. This is a small intimate group but very supportive and knowledgeable.
I would also recommend checking in to Memory Cafe’s. These are new to the US but they are starting popping up all over. If you can email me with more details on your friend’s location I’d be glad to see what I can find out. I’m trying to track were they are located. Or check Alzheimer’s Cafe as well.

If your friend wants to chat with me and give me a better idea of needs I’d be glad to talk.

I’m getting really close to launching our 2nd version of http://www.AlzheimersSpeaks.com which will be a much expanded version of what I have now. So dementia resources in many platforms will be accessible. The sites goals is to raise the voice of all connecting us to products, services and tools in an easy fashion.

I hope that helps for now

Lori La Bey
Alzheimer’s Speaks

Comment on I Need Help by Carolatamazingplace

Carolatamazingplace — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:34:36 +0000

Carol in Houston
There is an early onset support group that meets in Houston. The patient and caregiver attends the group together. They also offer various activities and resources to support this clientele. A list of meetings and times can be found on the alz.org website.

Comment on The Enthusiasts by angelamc

angelamc — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:32:28 +0000

very evangelical but so spot on!

Comment on Tune-In To The Cindy Laverty Show Friday For an Hour of Tribes of Eden by RobertAlbert

RobertAlbert — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:56:54 +0000

Where is the app to make this show automatically start playing when it’s time… Oh, that’s OK, I’ll remember to go to the site and take a listen when I get some free time… Looking forward to it!

Comment on Strawberry Pop Tarts by AnnetteKattau

AnnetteKattau — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:44:18 +0000

They are probably made in CHINA too!!!

Comment on Abolishing the Old Age Home, Part 3: What Comes Next by marygerdt

marygerdt — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:41:35 +0000

Great!

Comment on Things Are In The Saddle And Ride Mankind by Tim Stevens

Tim Stevens — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:02:05 +0000

Thanks Bill for putting my post on your blog and for your generous comments. It was great to meet you and see June and Paul again in Ireland. We did not really have time to discuss regulation at great length. So I will expand a bit here. I’m rather taken by the writings of Michal Albert. However I’m far too bourgeois not to be a wee bit dubious about how practical or even desirable his alternative to capitalism would be in practice. However I think the principles of participatory democracy that he and others like Noam Chomsky have beautifully articulated in Parecom are highly relevant and achievable as a mode of governance in extended care settings.

Unfortunately in Ireland real democratic oversight that ensures that the voice of residents, their significant others, and people in their wider community have due influence on service design and delivery has diminished over the years. This is because executive powers have been ceded to a bureaucratic gravy-train called the Health Information and Quality Authority. No doubt this is in line with a highbrow global scepticism about the effectiveness of local networks of interpersonal trust that have traditionally and in fact will continue to bind sustainable communities.

I’m afraid in the medium term the order of the day is a rather grey and drab apartheid; on one side of the tracks you have a gated community of scrutinizers. On the other side of the tracks you have the scrutinised that spend half their life covering their backs with soul destroying tick boxes, copious care plans, meaningless narrative notes and pointless policy’s. The rest of their working life is spent with one eye constantly trying to disengage from those warm human interactions that keep distracting us from penmanship. In other words the human subject has been captured by systems, processes and slogans like “accountability”, “auditability”, “patient safety” and “good governance”.

Most of it is proselytised in good faith and not all of it is unreasonable. But like most things it can have unintended consequences. One might even use Milton Friedman’s favourite euphemism: “Externalities”. And I am not simply talking about deforestation (the deciduous kind) and polluting the environment with information overload and paper pulp. It has placed enormous pressures on institutions. Fortunately, in places that have experienced the benefits of the Eden philosophy it also creates a great deal of cognitive dissonance. This may be uncomfortable but it is also vital because it encourages critical engagement. Indeed that is why I have taken your council and started to scribble down my thoughts. It really would be unbearable to see a return of a nameless ageist malady whose symptoms have, thanks to your organisation been taken more seriously. But making the pathology of loneliness, boredom and helplessness credible is one thing, understanding its aetiology is quite another. I think “surplus safety” is a useful conceptual device in this regard. It reminds us that we are dealing with a social disease; a churlish condition or canker that ends up targeting the very people who provide employees like me with such rich, meaningful and rewarding work.

Comment on Alive Inside by Juliet Holt Klinger

Juliet Holt Klinger — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 18:22:50 +0000

Love It! Its a great video, and it is awesome to see it go so viral so quickly. I sent the You Tube out this week to all of our Program Coordinators at Brookdale to remind them of the powerful impact their work can have in the resident’s LIVING a full life. I also love that it so beautifully illustrates the importance of KNOWING the person. We can’t wait to see the full film.

Comment on ‘Post-Apocalyptic Nursing Home Parties Propel Indie Novel to Bestseller List’ by CathyMichaelsonLieblich

CathyMichaelsonLieblich — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:58:40 +0000

A great introduction to the background behind the book. Just purchased it and looking forward to reading it!

Comment on Mindful Blogging: An Introduction To Meditation by 001faren

001faren — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:22:48 +0000

Being open to the future is the way of fresh approaches. Clear and purified insight, is necessary for the growth and understanding of our multicultural world. Meditation helps us to redirect our actions and our attitudes in thoughtful and constructive ways.

Comment on Prison and Dementia by sailesh2000

sailesh2000 — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:37:02 +0000

Sometime ago , year ago I raised question about elderly people in Prison in India , what about dementia / Alzheimer’s to them ? there is no study ?

Comment on Prison and Dementia by pauljoec

pauljoec — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:36:45 +0000

Sometimes a good idea, even a noble idea, can be embodied in a way that falls far short of its original intent. So while I would argue with Dr. Thomas that prisoners deserve the best of humane care, it is possible that the realization of that idea can be done in such a way that it does no one justice. So in some states there is an attempt to save money by mixing populations of the elderly. It goes without saying that careful screening would have to be done to release prisoners into a nursing home setting, but can I assume that it would be? Nursing Homes often fail in what they are supposed to be already doing. Read the NYT earlier this year: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/us/prisoners-on-medical-parole-housed-in-california-nursing-homes.html?_r=4&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y (“When the Nursing Home Resident in the Next Room Is a Convicted Criminal” NY Times January 19, 2012) Connecticut is also considering such arrangements http://ctmirror.org/story/15565/state-seeking-nursing-home-take-sick-disabled-prisoners (“State seeking nursing home to take sick disabled prisoners”) February 27, 2012 CT Mirror. When the major emphasis is on saving money rather than producing quality care, there have got to be concerns. Traditional nursing homes in many instances already fall so short of elders’ needs that adding prisoners to the mix seems like just another problem. Also for some states the temptation to save money, (keeping a prisoner is a nursing home is cheaper than jail, and also provides more reimbursement than medicaid) means that for some elders who need long term care and have been impoverished by illness and “the system,” they will be put behind on a list which puts convicted prisoners first because the reimbursement will be better. While the current Times article does not suggest these solutions, that is the trend in some states. My wish is that more thoughtfulness/oversight be given to current system for folks who need to be in Long Term Care, and I agree that elderly prisoners deserve the best of care as well.

Comment on Knowing When To Say Goodbye… To Life by MakeADifference

MakeADifference — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:00:30 +0000

Very touching story. Oh, we’re collecting stories about things that make a difference to others at http://www.1000WaysToMakeADifference.com. I’d love it if you’d share some of these there!

~ Carol Liege.

Comment on Again with the Darned Robots by pauljoec

pauljoec — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:08:11 +0000

It really is a shame that Long Term Care produces such sterile environments that are so much more like hospitals than homes. I am really grateful to people like Dr. Thomas who doing the work to change the perspective that will be needed to make something else possible. I am only sorry that for my own parents who are in a LTC facility in Connecticut and on Medicaid there are no alternatives there. http://nursinghomecall.blogspot.com/

Comment on How Could a Meth Lab Explosion Happen in a Nursing Home? by kbilly21

kbilly21 — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:29:22 +0000

@RobertAlbert Thanks for the diatribe, point well taken.

Comment on Join Dr. Bill For the TRIBES of EDEN Virtual Book Launch Party by RobertAlbert

RobertAlbert — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:12:09 +0000

Number one with a bullet, as Casey Kasem used to say. A reference to media tracking of bestsellers and how quickly they rise (the bullet next to an entry on the charts to show it is a new/fast rising seller on those charts). Nice to see a word normally associated with violence used in a much more productive way. “Gimme Back My Bullets,” might not yet be appropriate here (Lynard Skynard wrote this song when their sales started dropping off years ago), but maybe this is just the first of many bullets to come.
I guess I’m a musical state of mind today, but I’m most definitely on board for pushing great media to the top. Onward AND upward then…

Comment on How Could a Meth Lab Explosion Happen in a Nursing Home? by RobertAlbert

RobertAlbert — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 06:37:32 +0000

This is a first… A Changing Aging blog page that I dislike, despite a not so insidious feeling I have of not being “qualified,” to judge, and complain about it.

Worst nursing home ever? Perhaps not.
The self destructive tendencies of meth addicts, mixed with an exceptionally sensational new way to kill themselves and others played a major role in what happened in this instance. The environment at this home most PROBABLY played a role in their wanton disregard for the safety of the many elders and people that live and work in that home. But I am not going to let the Associated Press article noted above cloud my judgement with regard to one particular incident. Unfortunately, these incidents of meth explosions are already occurring with greater and greater frequency and in more and more places. I am loathe to ramble off on a diatribe about how stopping meth addiction is well within our grasp already, and how the pharmaceutical industry is more interested in making money than doing the right thing. So I won’t. I will stay on task and try to make my point instead.
I have never before put my foot down like this, but I come to the Changing Aging Blogstream for FREE easy access to what has, to date, been the highest quality content ever generated for those of us who are fortunate to have found a lifelong challenge worth pursuing for so very many reasons: returning our elders to the venerated position they never should have lost in the first place. Such endeavors are the single greatest way I can contribute to making this world a better place, and so I choose to continue doing so. The many articles I read here are often the nucleus of much of what I attempt to use to craft a better environment at our home that is also a nursing home. The articles here are rarely based on a single AP article/incident, and that’s why I like (LOVE) this blog. Thank you for such a rich environment to peruse on a daily basis. Thank you from the deepest wells of my heart. But PLEASE reconsider posting AP links of a newsworthy, but not useful nature, as I believe it will demean the overall goals of the Changing Aging site itself.
Simply changing the title of this blog page is all I am suggesting in this case. Sorry for the bandwidth I’m taking up to say one small thing, but that “not so insidious feeling on not being qualified,” I had got trumped by a visceral dislike for allowing sensationalist media to leak into such and excellent environment for sharing quality media.

Comment on The Tribes of Eden Ride into Houston by drrcarp

drrcarp — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:24:41 +0000

What a great experience it was to listen to the story of Culture Change in Texas. The roots of Eden, “It can be different”, and Brookwood, “Meaningful Happens Here” both sharing their story. As Bill stated that you can tell that Culture Change is working when the stories of the care-partners become the same. A community were person-centered growth is alive and well for all to experience the gifts we share. It was a great day to be a Texan and be a part of the Texas Culture Change Coalition. @drrcarp