Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Disabled Coloradans sue state over Medicaid cuts

Patti's Comments: This needs to stop!!

Excerpt from the Denver Post: (click for entire article)

A group of disabled Coloradans who say their Medicaid benefits were cut without warning is suing the state, claiming the reductions strapped their budgets for in-home health care just before the holidays.

The complaint against the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing is the second filed this month alleging the Medicaid program is treating disabled people unfairly.

The latest lawsuit isn't focused on the cuts in benefits — the entire Medicaid program was slammed with budget reductions this fall — but the lack of notice.

Up to 750 disabled residents rely on monthly Medicaid benefits to pay nurses and caregivers to help them bathe, dress, cook and take medications in their homes. They are enrolled in a program that lets them hire, fire and manage their own attendants instead of working through a home-health agency.

Some of those in the program received letters in October informing them of a 1.5 percent cut in their allocation — retroactive to Sept. 1 — without explanation or, they claim, legally required notice that they were allowed to appeal.

Other patients received no notification at all.

The lawsuit, which seeks to represent the whole class of Medicaid beneficiaries, alleges the cut was more than cuts levied on other people who receive home-health services.

Nonprofit at Wintergreen gets $4k grant

Patti's Comments: This is great! I'd love to see it!

Excerpt from New Era Progress : (click for entire article)

Wintergreen Adaptive Sports, a nonprofit organization based at Wintergreen Resort that provides ski and snowboard and kayak and canoe lessons for people with disabilities, has received a $4,000 grant from the Greater Lynchburg Community Trust to continue its third year of its Adaptive Sports Partners Program in the Lynchburg area.

This program will bring clients from the DePaul Family Services’ Options Day Support Program of Madison Heights to Wintergreen Resort for a minimum of 24 ski lessons over the course of this snow sport season.

Wintergreen Adaptive Sports also received a grant from the Nelson County Community Fund, which is used for skiing participants from the Horizon Clubhouse in Lovingston.

According to Michael Zuckerman, Wintergreen Adaptive Sports executive director, outdoor sports have powerful therapeutic benefits for people with disabilities. Not only can they maintain or increase their physical fitness, but also they enjoy tremendous boosts in self-confidence and self esteem.

For the past two seasons, up to six Options participants have been skiing weekly with the adaptive sports volunteer staff and the effects, both physical and emotional, have been tremendous.

“Watching these individuals, many of whom have serious disabilities, enjoy the freedom of sliding down a beautiful mountainside is very gratifying,” Zuckerman said. “Most of these folks have limited access to recreational opportunities in the winter months and we are thrilled to be able to provide the healthy exercise and the camaraderie that they experience.”

Seniors ask Gov. Gregoire to help with Meals on Wheels

Patti's Comments: Great program! Glad to hear folks are fighting for it!

Excerpt from The News Tribune: (click for entire article)

Hundreds of senior citizens in the Tri-Cities are sending heart-felt messages written on paper plates to Gov. Chris Gregoire, hoping the state's Meals on Wheels program won't suffer budget cuts next year.

Gregoire's proposed budget for the next biennium would see about $26,000 cut out of the local Meals on Wheels funding for the second half of 2010, said Marcee Woffinden, Meals on Wheels program director at Senior Life Resources Northwest in Kennewick.

The campaign to petition the governor's office with paper plates involves all of the Southeast Area Agency on Aging and Long-term Care for eight counties, including Benton, Franklin, Yakima and Walla Walla, said John Rupp, chief executive officer for Senior Life Resources Northwest.

The 270 paper plates that bear the messages and signatures represent most of the 520 senior citizens in Benton and Franklin counties who daily receive meals, either at one of seven dining sites, or by delivery to their homes.

Woffinden said the governor's budget, which Gregoire said she personally didn't like, would require a 65 percent cut from the Senior Citizen's Services Act. That amounts to $7 million across the state, and would mean $26,000 less for Benton and Franklin counties Meals on Wheels during the second half of next year.

"In our community this could represent a loss of 3,600 meals for the last six months of 2010," Woffinden noted in a memo to clients.

Meals on Wheels in the Tri-Cities provides daily nutrition, social contact and welfare checks for its clients. It also gives able senior citizens the opportunity to be volunteers, Woffinden said.

Each paper plate has a printed plea to the governor not to cut funds, and a place for the petitioner to put a personal note about why the meals are important.

"I need food," wrote one woman.

"I feel like I have a real family when I go there," commented one man.

"It lets me live independently and I want to live alone as long as I can," noted another person.

Home Health Care Nightmare

Excerpt from Legal Medicine : (click for entire article)

Let me begin with a confession. I have to rely on home health care workers to take care of one of my parents. I wish it could be different but we live 6 states away. So I must daily rely on these women, many strangers, to care for my loved one.

And I am not alone. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were over 1 million home health care workers in the United States in 2008. That means hundreds of thousands rely on their care. And these services are not simply limited to the elderly (my Mom suffers from MS and is a young 62 year old).

According to the LA Times this week, many of these health care workers are working without clean licenses and despite very serious past actions in other states.

How does this happen? Most often, a family in need will call a staffing service and rely on whomever is sent. You are not given full names to look up their license information, and rarely if ever receive a reference.

The hope is that the staffing agency has done their homework. But what if the nurse recently moved to hide past sins? How can you know?

A health care proxy and durable power of attorney are critical when your child turns 18

Excerpt from Estate Planning Bits: (click for entire article)

So, your college-aged baby is now back from the fall semester in college, or perhaps just passing through home for the holidays before moving on to a semester abroad or a new job. You might be rushing around packing electronic adapters, passports and visas, and buying all those goodies that your child might need on his/her next adventure.

Stop for a minute. If your child has not yet executed a Durable Power of Attorney, and Health Care Proxy, it is wise to re-think priorities.

From now on, if your over-18-year-old meets with some money problems, or cannot access a bank account or resolve a credit card problem, unless there is a Durable Power of Attorney in place, the US financial institution cannot authorize you to access that bank or credit card account in hopes of managing or reconciling the problem. Sure, you might consider encouraging your child to change his bank account to a "joint account," but the implications from that type of ownership, whether on tax returns, financial aid applications, creditor problems, untimely death, or any number of situations, could have some serious adverse consequences.

I have written this before, and I’ll repeat: It was just good timing when I insisted that my son execute a Durable Power of Attorney shortly after turning 18 and before a college trip with friends. Due to some fluke he couldn’t access his bank account while out of the country. The authority provided in the Durable Power of Attorney allowed me to untangle the knot so that he could get on with his fun. Fast forward some years later to his extended trip alone to Thailand. Yet again, another bank issue came up. Again, we were thankful to have that simple document in place.

How about a Health Care Proxy? Not even debatable. Get it prepared and properly signed right after your child turns 18. Then, as your child enjoys his college fun, goes cavorting through forests, tastes new raw foods in foreign countries, or rides on the back of motorbikes with complete strangers, you will have the peace of mind of knowing that in the unlikely event that something does go wrong, and if your child cannot convey his/her thoughts, you will be authorized to speak for his medical care.

Yoga and Disability: Matthew Sanford Heals Bodies

Excerpt from Disaboom: (click for entire article)

Matthew Sanford has a dream - one in which he is not dismissed as a New Age nut when he extols the virtues of yoga as a form of rehabilitation.

The 42-year-old Minnesotan credits yoga for relieving the damage inflicted on his body and mind after a serious car crash in 1978.  The crash severed his spinal cord when he was just 13 and took the lives of his father and older sister. According to Sanford, the resulting physical and mental trauma was locked inside his body for years, an internal wound that refused to heal.

For 12 years, doctors convinced him to write off his paralyzed lower body as a lost cause and focus only on strengthening his upper body. By following that advice, he effectively disconnected himself from his body and lost his sense of being complete.

As a gangly teenager, Sanford said the intensive weightlifting regimen prescribed by the people treating him did not jibe with his athletic interests or dissipate his trauma.

“It didn’t turn me on or light me up, but it also felt like it was being piled on top of the trauma I’d already absorbed,” he said. He felt as though weightlifting might have helped him travel uphill in his wheelchair faster, but it didn’t resolve the fact that he missed fully living in his body.

Discovering Iyengar Yoga

In 1990, Sanford discovered Iyengar yoga, which stresses alignment and precision in the body. It helped him to realize that although he wouldn’t be able to walk again, he could still feel sensations and energy coming from his legs. This discovery gradually allowed him to reclaim his entire body and enjoy a renewed sense of wholeness.

Mother defends school trip legal action threat

Excerpt from The Inverness Courier: (click for entire article)

Donna Williamson, of Aultnaskiach Avenue, spoke out yesterday after news of the cancellation of the annual trip sparked anger among a small group of parents.

The parents wrote to local councillors, Inverness MP Danny Alexander and Highland Council education officials about concerns that their children would be missing out.

The council said it had "no option" but to call off two excursions - one to an outdoor centre and the other to Glasgow, visiting museums and art galleries - due to the complexities of legislation governing disability discrimination.

But Mrs Williamson explained her 11-year-old daughter, who has a rare form of muscular dystrophy, is "seriously ill" and argued that no school trips should go ahead unless every pupil could take part.

The mother is upset and frustrated that she has found herself at the centre of a row with the parents whose children also attend Crown Primary School.

She believes some parents may have over-reacted because they might not be aware of all the facts.

She told The Inverness Courier the issue, which surfaced last Wednesday, had ruined the family's Christmas and some comments made on the newspaper's website by readers have caused further distress.

Mrs Williamson stressed: "My view is that the school trip was never cancelled - only the venue or destination was changed. The details of the trip are still being worked on and I have e-mails to that effect."

Autism has Reached Crisis Proportions

Excerpt from Natural News : (click for entire article)

Autism was first brought forth to the public's attention in the 1950's. Since then, it has been rising steadily. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recently released that today 1 in 110 children are autistic. More alarming is the fact that on December 18, 2009, it reported that autism increased by 57% in the last four years.

Most experts attribute the cause of autism to be unknown, defining it as a combination of genetic and environmental factors. However, there has been much controversy as to what, indeed, is responsible for our children not being able to communicate, form relationships, and/or respond to their surroundings.

The most popular of these controversies is vaccines, pointing directly to the Mumps-Measles-Rubella vaccine and the mercury based preservative, thimerosal. Other theories include:

Genetics
Atypical Brain Development
Immune Deficiency Disorder
Food Allergies
Poor Nutrition
Complications During Delivery
Environmental Toxins
Exposure to Heavy Metals

Experts explain the reason for this dramatic increase with the fact that they are more able to easily diagnose this disorder. However, those advocating more research state that the alarming rate at which this disorder is growing simply cannot be explained away. The statistics have grown from 1 in 5,000 children 20 years ago to 1 in 100 today. This points the finger to environmental factors such as vaccines and environmental toxins to the very foods we eat.

Daring to Live Your Life Offline

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal: (click for entire article)

When reporting a story, I sometimes need to find a particular kind of person—someone who's battling cancer, or who recently switched banks, or who owns both a Chevy pickup and Toyota sedan.

At such moments, I call my brother Keith, a telecommunications worker in eastern Kansas. Usually he says, "I know just the guy."

His contacts are so diverse in large part because he's offline. At age 52, he's never sent an email, surfed the Web or bought anything online. With no BlackBerry to distract him in the grocery line, he's likely to make a friend or two before checking out. With no Web page to instruct him on his latest project—how to grind sausage or build a cow fence or install a wood-burning stove—he seeks out the help and advice of neighbors who have done it, and during beer-drinking sessions afterward he listens carefully to their talk of health problems, banking habits and new-car purchases.

"I like talking to people," he says. "I don't understand this thing nowadays where people in the same room send each other emails instead of talking."

Although my older brother always fancied himself old-fashioned, Internet trends are making him more so. As a stranger to the Web, my brother belongs to one of the nation's fastest-shrinking minorities.

Caregiver jailed for feeding woman faeces

Excerpt from Nine MSN: (click for entire article)

A Hong Kong court has jailed a caregiver who forced a 65-year-old dementia sufferer to eat her own faeces, a judicial official has said.

Chan Sau-kuen force-fed the woman her own excrement on at least two occasions as punishment for soiling herself.

Jailing Chan for six months on Tuesday and fining her $437, magistrate Symon Wong warned her she would "be punished by heaven" for behaviour that "deprived elderly people of their dignity," The Standard newspaper reported.