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

Explosion of direct-care workforce will cause industry change

Excerpt from Health Care Finance: (click for entire article)

As the federal government continues to push for home care services to keep patients out of more costly care settings, a new analysis estimates that the country’s direct-care workers providing hands-on long-term care will outnumber healthcare facility workers by more than two-to-one. This boom in the direct-care workforce will mean the industry will face changes.

The direct-care workforce is expected to add 1.6 million jobs to the economy in the next decade, totaling approximately 5 million workers by 2020, found an analysis by the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI), a nonprofit advocating for the direct-care workforce and improvements in long-term care.

Such figures would make the direct-care workforce – personal care aides, nursing aides, orderlies, attendants, home health aides and others – the largest occupational group in the country, PHI estimates, and would make those workers a powerful force.

How the elderly are treated should scare you

Excerpt from the Calgary Herald: (click for entire article)

I am 72 years young and I have worked in the health-care system for 47 years as a professional physiotherapist, and over six years as a private care-giver.

I have worked in hospitals, nursing homes and private physiotherapy clinics. I have seen the rise and fall of our health-care system, but never have I been as scared as I have been the past six years. I witnessed the decrease in the care and respect for those living in health-care facilities. They have become a place to warehouse the elderly, the mentally ill and disabled till they die.

In the 1980s, we lobbied for the elderly so all health-care facilities had full services and access to geriatricians, specialists, all rehabilitation services, as well as social and recreational activities. Those were the good years, when the elderly weren't afraid to go to lodges, nursing homes and auxiliary hospitals when needed.

'Treat the elderly as humans, not tasks': NHS chief gives nurses a lesson in basic care

Excerpt from Mail Online: (click for entire article)

Nurses  are being told to stop seeing the elderly as ‘tasks to be completed’.

They will be urged to consider each patient as somebody’s grandparent, mother or father, rather than merely a ‘condition’.

In a speech today, Sir Keith Pearson, chairman of the NHS Confederation, an umbrella body for organisations that provide NHS services, will tell nurses to ‘look behind the mask of sickness and frailty’ and see the individual.

Trusted care for those with special needs - Mission/Accreditation

Excerpt from Quest, Inc.: (click for entire article)

Mission Statement
Quest provides support services for persons with special needs to promote inclusion, maximize independence and improve quality of life.

Corporate Values
The corporate values governing Quest, Inc.'s development will include the following: Quest values center around our commitment to persons with special challenges living and working in the community with the least restrictive homes and work places.

When Cancer ‘Boomerangs’ the Adult Child

Excerpt from The New York Times: (click for entire article)

Suleika Jaouad, 23, is chronicling her return to her parents’ home, and to a life of being cared for, in a post on The Times’s Well blog. Her “boomerang”  back toward her childhood house came about as a result of her diagnosis of  leukemia last year, and now, waiting for a bone marrow transplant, her life has become, she writes, a “slow emergency,” her world “a waiting room.”

Read her journal entries on the Well, and watch a video portrait of Ms. Jaouad, “Facing Cancer in Your 20s,” to hear her words — and those of her mother, seen wiping her eyes quietly in the background as Ms. Jaouad is treated. When a child is ill, “you want to do everything for her,” Ms. Jaouad’s mother says. “But you’ve got to learn to stand back, and to be useless, and accept it. And it’s very hard.”

Strength for the Moment: 10 Tips for Family Caregivers

Excerpt from The Huffington Post: (click for entire article)

In 1995, an incident in our neighborhood helped me understand the kind of stress that family caregivers of aging loved ones face each day. My husband Paul and I noticed a ruckus at the house down the street and discovered that the elderly man who lived there had died. The man and his wife, who was blind, were being cared for by an adult daughter in her late 40s or early 50s -- the age at which many family caregivers are looking after their parents.

The family had no other relatives so I offered to spend the night. The daughter had been holed up in the house as the only caregiver to her parents. Both she and her mother were so distraught. The adult daughter was unkempt and exhausted from her role as caregiver to her parents. She kept coming out of her bedroom to talk with me, and asked over and over: "What am I going to do?"

Since then, I've had the honor of hearing the highs and lows of many caregivers' personal stories through my work with Home Instead Senior Care®, the organization Paul and I started to provide seniors at-home care and companionship.

Readers Share Their Stories of Loss

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

Last month, I wrote about the challenges my family faced as we raced to provide care for my ailing father. That column met with an outpouring of emails from readers—and a realization on my part that many tough choices lay ahead when it comes to any future care for my mom.

This column is based on the questions, insights and experiences of readers. There were questions about long-term-care insurance, hospice coverage and Medicare, and many emotional tales of families in similar—and sometimes much more difficult—circumstances.

A father's vigilance stays strong

Excerpt from Times Union: (click for entire article)

On nearly any given day, Michael Carey can be seen lobbying in the Capitol. Five years after his autistic son was killed by a state caregiver, Carey firmly believes the state still has not done enough to protect the developmentally disabled in its care from abuse and neglect.

Thirteen-year-old Jonathan Carey was asphyxiated in the back seat of a van by an overworked caregiver who sat on the boy as a way to restrain him. Jonathan became the poster child of a New York Times series last year that exposed rampant abuse and mismanagement in the state's mental health system.

Since then, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has appointed Courtney Burke as the new commissioner of the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities with a mandate to overhaul the agency, which operates large institutions and oversees more than 700 nonprofit service providers for the developmentally disabled statewide. The more than 126,000 residents in state care have conditions like Down syndrome, autism and cerebral palsy.

Choices: Who will care for Mom and Dad?

Excerpt from Naples News: (click for entire article)

The next 25 years promise demographic changes that will reshape the face of America and transform the lives of all who live here, claims Andrew Zolli, a futurist working at the intersection of design, technology, culture and futures research.

"These changes will amplify one another and deeply alter our national concerns, assumptions and agendas," he says.

At the helm of a continuing dramatic change is increased longevity. People are living longer. People living longer will result in the need for more governmental and social resources. Added to this demographic reality is the fact that a great wave of Baby Boomers has begun their initial decent into old age.

The Caregiver’s Bookshelf: A Law Guide for Seniors

Excerpt from The New York Times: (click for entire article)

How much can a retiree earn without compromising his Social Security benefits? How do you petition for guardianship of an incapacitated older relative (and is that a good idea)? What should you know about reverse mortgages?

Navigating the law as an older adult, or on behalf of one, is a daunting enterprise. Not only are the regulations, requirements and exceptions multitudinous and confusing, but many of them regularly change. What’s the asset limit for those applying for Medicaid reimbursement of nursing home costs? Well, it depends which year you ask.

“Everyday Law for Seniors,” written by two law professors — Lawrence Frolik of the University of Pittsburgh and Linda Whitton of Valparaiso University — guides readers through the maze. The authors take on a variety of common topics (age discrimination, Social Security, housing, pensions, Medicare and other insurance) and offer clear, careful explanations and suggestions. First published in 2010, the book’s just been updated to include the most recent federal benefits numbers.