Using Music to Provide Harmony at the End of Life
Photo credit Sergia Capzzimati
...How Music Influences the End-of-Life Experience: When someone you love is terminally ill, there are many complex emotions involved. The instinct to nurture and comfort them is intense, but it can be difficult to know what is appropriate to say or do. End-of-life care and support are very different from the daily care that family members previously provided. In many cases, busy days of preparing meals, providing medications and chauffeuring between doctor’s appointments are replaced with comfort care and bedside vigils.
This is one of the many reasons Franz feels that this very special ...
Source: Minding Our Elders - August 30, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Adaptive Footwear Can Aid Comfort and Joint Health While Helping You Prevent Falls
While the average person is unlikely to do high jumps or run marathons, even daily life can wear out our joints. Over time, this wear may become apparent through pain. Age aside, diseases such as arthritis can eat away at our joints and cause inflammation, as well. The result of these assaults can be damaged hips and knees, and malformed feet and toes. Wise people learn that supportive, adjustable footwear can make or break our day, and that’s where Silverts can help.
Extra wide for inflamed and non-aligned toes: The pressure of shoes on sore or twisted joints can force even people who once had narrow feet ...
Source: Minding Our Elders - August 29, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Suicide of Caregiver Leaves Spouse Adrift, and Friend Devastated
Photo credit Ivan Samkov
Dear Carol: After years of caring for his wife who has advanced dementia, my lifelong friend reached his limit and killed himself. He had the financial resources to place her in a care home, yet when I suggested this, he said that he couldn’t live with the guilt. Had he viewed outside help differently, he could have returned to his role as a loving husband rather than a stress-out caregiver. Now, his wife has been moved to such a care facility without him to support her transition, and his friends and family are heartbroken. Keep doing what you’re doing by telling caregivers that pr...
Source: Minding Our Elders - August 28, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Confused About Palliative Care Vs. Hospice Care? You Aren ’t Alone
Dear Carol: My mom has advanced lung disease as well as late-stage Alzheimer’s. We know that there are no cures for either of her current conditions, but the doctors don’t seem to have any useful answers for me when I ask about how I can make her life better at this stage. She has an inhaler for her lungs, but they don’t seem willing to prescribe medications or advice other than keep her comfortable. Well, how do I go about that? Should she be on hospice? I’ve heard of something called palliative care, but I don’t understand it and no doctor has mentioned it. Can you help me? – CV
Dear CV: I’m so...
Source: Minding Our Elders - August 27, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
How to Choose a Mobility Aid for an Older Adult
Most of us would love to live our lives without the need for mobility aids, but as we age, we begin to realize that this wish may be unrealistic. We could need a cane or a walker for a short time while recovering from surgery, or we may eventually need to use a wheelchair or a power scooter to get around safely. Either way, a tool to help us move from place to place and avoid falls can mean the difference between living independently and depending on others for our basic needs.
When I see some of the newer mobility aids on the market, I immediately think, “I wish that had been available for my mom.” My mother...
Source: Minding Our Elders - August 26, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
“Virgin-Soil Epidemics” Covers a Multitude of Sins
BY MIKE MAGEE
Epidemics don’t appear in isolation of geography, social status, race or economics.
In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation article, the authors reviewed case numbers and death rates organized by race/ethnicity. It will come as no surprise that the most vulnerable populations death rate is nearly three times greater than the least vulnerable. But what may surprise you is that the population at greatest risk was neither self-identified as Black or Hispanic, but Native American.
Sadly, this is not a new story, but in the analogs of American history, it has been papered over by a partially true, but inco...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 25, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Public Health Jeffrey Ostler Mike Magee Native Americans Virgin-Soil Epidemic Source Type: blogs
Home is All About Heart, Especially for the Elderly
Photo credit Alex Pavloff
...Most of us who've cared for people with dementia have heard the sad, repetitive lament, "I want to go home." If the person lives in a nursing home or assisted living facility, relatives naturally think that the home the elder wants to return to is the last place he or she lived before going to the care home.
More likely, at least in the case of Alzheimer's disease, the home this elder misses is a childhood home. It's the home where he or she felt the comfort of a mother's arms; the safety of a father's protection.
Again, this home is a state of mind rather than a building. Even if we could t...
Source: Minding Our Elders - August 25, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Automating Accessibility in Health IT – Part 2
The first article in this series, Disabilities and Accessibility in Health IT: The Need Is Constant, introduced the importance of designing web sites and other health care tools for many different types of people. In this article, we’ll look at how far you can go with the automation of web site accessibility.
Automation and the human factor
In most endeavors, computers can provide help while leaving tasks that require human intervention, a role for the computer that user interaction pioneer Doug Engelbart called “augmentation.” In making web sites accessible, we can ask which jobs are for a computer and w...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - August 24, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Communication and Patient Experience Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System accessiBe Accessibility Ada Axe-core Brandon Cooper Deque Systems Disability Doug Engelbart Dylan Barrell Fullscript Healthcare Autom Source Type: blogs
14 Phrases to Help Caregivers Stay Focused
Life isn’t easy for most people, and it’s not perfect for anybody. Sometimes, as we trudge through the days providing help for our care receivers, it’s nice to retrieve a thought or two that can encourage us to keep on doing what we do.
Below are a few suggestions that may help:
There is no such thing as a perfect caregiver. First of all, we are flawed human beings. Our care receivers are also flawed human beings who are likely unhappy about life events that have put them in a vulnerable position. Their wants and needs are ever-changing. We can’t be expected to know what to do at every turn or how to make...
Source: Minding Our Elders - August 24, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Disabilities and Accessibility in Health IT: The Need Is Constant – Part 1
Of all industries, health care above all should provide accessible web sites to support people with disabilities or special needs. Our field deals disproportionately with the elderly and with people who suffer a range of disabilities, physical and mental. Furthermore, the field is getting more and more digital with wellness sites, telehealth, and fitness devices—so making them accessible is crucial to making health care accessible.
Caroline Jerome, a designer who is a partner and chief creative officer at TBGA, pointed out to me that digital technologies have expanded the options available to disabled people. Accommodati...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - August 23, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Ambulatory Communication and Patient Experience Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System LTPAC accessiBe Accessibility Ada Brandon Cooper Caroline Jerome Digital Health Accessibility Disability Dylan Barrell Get Source Type: blogs
How To Communicate with Your Older Parents So They Hear You
“My mom is 81 and lives alone in her condo,” Judy Hanson writes. “Her arthritis is painful, but she gets around with a walker. Her mind is okay for now, though she is sometimes forgetful. I also feel that she is lonely.
“I’m worried about her safety and have been telling her for several years that she needs help,” she continues. “I’m not proud to say that I’ve stooped to yelling at her, but I have done it. I hate the thought of her falling and not having help, and I also think she’d be happier with more company. There’s a nice assisted living close by me so that’s where I want her to move. Will she...
Source: Minding Our Elders - August 23, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Educating Physicians About Firearm Safety and Injury Prevention
On this episode of the Academic Medicine Podcast, guests Katherine Hoops, MD, MPH, Andra Blomkalns, MD, MBA, and Allison Augustus-Wallace, PhD, MS, MNS, join host Toni Gallo to talk about firearm safety and injury prevention education. They discuss the role of physicians in engaging patients and communities in firearm injury risk reduction, the current state of firearm injury prevention education, and where the academic medicine community needs to go from here.
This episode is now available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else podcasts are available.
A transcript is below.
Read the articles d...
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - August 22, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: amrounds Tags: AM Podcast AM Podcast Transcript Academic Medicine podcast firearm injury prevention firearm safety medical education Source Type: blogs
How to Get Rid of the Urine Smell When Incontinence Accidents Happen
Dear Carol: I feel like my home is becoming contaminated territory! My Dad is a sweetheart, but he’s got dementia and has developed incontinence. He can really flood a diaper and isn’t great about changing under the best of conditions. I know this isn’t his fault, so I don’t think I let my frustration show, but it’s hard. I don’t mind doing laundry. I don’t mind the constant checking to try to get him to change diapers. I’m grateful that he never resists my efforts, as so many others do. But no matter what I do, there are accidents, and once pee gets into clothing and bedding it’s just so hard to get rid ...
Source: Minding Our Elders - August 22, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
A man in his 40s with multitrauma from motor vehicle collision
DiscussionThis is a case where clinical context is of vital importance, because the EKG manifestations of cardiac contusion are fairly unpredictable. Intramyocardial hemorrhage, edema, and necrosis of myocardial muscle cells are characteristics of cardiac contusion. All of these cause troponin elevation, making troponin a very specific marker for cardiac injury. It is suggested that a troponin that is within normal reference range at about 4-6 hours from the inciting event suggests strongly the absence of cardiac injury in blunt chest trauma (Sybrandy).The EKG is not generally sensitive for cardiac contusion. The right ven...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - August 6, 2022 Category: Cardiology Authors: Pendell Source Type: blogs
Ways to stop good clinicians leaving pain management (i)
After the heartbreaking post last week that seemed to resonate with so many around the world, I thought I’d look at what we can do to stop good clinicians leaving pain management.
While our jurisdictions have differences in pay rates, reimbursement approaches and treatment codes, at the heart of good healthcare is good people who want to help. So why, when healthcare is populated with caring clinicians, do we strike bullying, lack of support for one another, non-existent teamwork, and poor career pathways? What is going on?
I’ll tackle these in bite-sized chunks, starting with the funders. And of course, ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - July 31, 2022 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Chronic pain Interdisciplinary teams Professional topics Science in practice Clinical reasoning Health healthcare Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs
