Hospitals in Cleveland Introduce ER’s Focused on Senior Care
This Cleveland.com article, University Hospital’s Bedford, Richmond ERs Focus on Senior Care, shares important changes at yet another medical center, changes that focus on the needs of seniors when they go a hospital’s emergency facility.
Holy Cross Hospital Senior ER
How wonderful that the first senior-friendly emergency room, at Holy Cross Hospital in suburban Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC set a high bar and that other institutions are aspiring to reach and exceed.
Watch this YouTube video clip about the special emergency facility for senior citizens opened at Holy Cross Hospital in Montgomery County, Maryland. Trailblazer Dr.Bill Thomas, a geriatrician on the faculty of the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Erickson School, consulted with the hospital.
A Washington Post describe the new Holy Cross Hospital senior emergency facility. My October 25, 2010 As Our Parents Age post explains how several hospitals in Michigan have opened senior ER centers.
When Family Members Accompany an Aging Parent to the Doctor
Visiting the doctor’s office with an aging parent can be one the most puzzling situations for adult children as they provide increasing support. The dynamics of the situation can be confusing, especially in a time when family roles and responsibilities are changing. My husband visited the doctor with his 90-year-old mother on several occasions. At each appointment he tried to keep the focus on her, and he usually waited for her to bring up issues with her physician. However, he also found that as she declined cognitively, sharing his observations became more important, particularly when he thought that some of her symptoms might result from medication interactions.
American Medical News, a publication of the American Medical Association (AMA), recently published a November 14, 2011 article about relatives who accompany an aging patient on a visit to the doctor. When the Office Visit is a Family Matter includes interviews with physicians who have found themselves in the examining room with a patient and one or more of the patient’s relatives.
Some Important Issues to Keep in Mind
When Family Members Accompany a Patient to a Physician Visit Read more »
What is a Meta-Analysis and How Does It Help Find Better Information?
If you are researching a course of treatment or a cause of disease for an aging parent, family member, or friend, the chances are that you will read scientific studies. Perhaps you will check PubMed, the National Institutes of Health site that has abstracts of all published scientific research. You can visit the National Library of Medicine online or in person, or maybe arrange to go to your local hospital library and check out medical journals.
What’s confusing about searching for information in this way? Well, for one thing, if you are looking for research that examines a particular treatment, disease, or intervention, you are as likely to find studies that describe the success as you are to find reliable research that identified failures.
What should you do in your search? To get a much bigger picture, try to locate a study that’s a meta-analysis.
How Long Before We Focus on the Need for Clear Conversations About the End-of-Life?
How sad is this? I guess it is not surprising that conversations with families about end-of-life and time left to a sick person still are not direct and clear for everyone. Click on the image below and read the November 16, 2011 New York Times New Old Age blog post by Paula Spann. One of the people she interviews is Joan Teno, M.D., an expert on aging and end-of-life issues.
Read this article
Other As Our Parents Age posts that refer to Dr. Joan Teno’s work.
Low-Sodium Diet VIII: Figuring Out How to Adjust a Much-loved Thanksgiving Recipe
Recap: My dad has congestive heart failure, so he is on a low sodium diet. My husband and I decided that we too could join my parents’ adventure with low-sodium eating. I’ve been posting occasional updates about our experiences (read my first low-sodium post in the series).
My Thanksgiving 2011 stuffing experiment is working! We have a slow cooker/crock pot full of stuffing, somewhere between eight and ten servings. We haven’t sat down to eat Thanksgiving dinner yet, but everyone has tasted the stuffing and given a thumbs up.
Here’s what I did. Read more »
Low Sodium Diet VII: Thanksgiving Stuffing
My croutons bagged and ready for stuffing duty.
I am aiming to prepare a low-sodium Thanksgiving dinner.
I’ve just read an article, Experts Warn: Thanksgiving Poses Hidden Sodium Dangers, describing the dangers of stealth sodium in Thanksgiving foods. The Associated Press article, which appeared in NJ.com points out that people can reach and exceed the appropriate daily sodium intake just in the one holiday meal. A big thank-you to my cousin, Sandy, for sending me the link.
To get started, I’ve ordered a free-range turkey. It’s organic and not brined. I’ll find out exactly how much sodium it contains, but I’ve been told by Whole Foods that it will be on the low-end.
End-of-Life Documents — Don’t Mess Around
Many years ago, shortly after my daughter was born, my parents asked my husband and me about our will. It turned out, however, that they were less concerned about a will than they were about whether we had signed medical directives or health care proxies that defined what should be done is case one of us, despite our good health and youthful ages (we were 30-somethings at the time), was suddenly very ill and at the end-of-life.
It took a few more years, but we both signed proxies. The final impetus was the news coverage of families who were fighting over a family member who was dying,some of these turning into media circuses where pundits and cable news commentators shrilly proclaimed that they knew what should be done. We resolved never to put ourselves or our families in such a situation.
So it was with some interest that I read a November 16, 2011 Associated Press article in the Chicago Tribune, End of Life Documents Not Huge Concern for Many Boomers, Who Say They Still Feel Young, describing an Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong.com Poll that identified a trend among boomers not to sign medical directives. A number of the people in the article said that they felt healthy and great and just didn’t have time to focus on the task – not the greatest point of view, since life can change in an instant. Read how the poll was conducted.
Not having a medical directive or health care proxy can cause a huge amount pain in a family. Moreover, if an adult child is helping to support aging parents, the lack of a proxy has the potential to cause extraordinary confusion and stress.
U.S. Adults Use Social Media: As American as Apple Pie
Visit the Pew Internet site.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently published new social media data, this time asking why American adults use social networks.
From my point of view, keeping in touch with people is a grand old American tradition, as traditional as apple pie. Over the years whether it’s over the backyard fence, via snail mail letter, postcard, telephone, or e-mail, Americans like to connect and communicate.
Interestingly, according to this new Pew data, adults become involved with social media — Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and others — because of the ease of keeping in touch. It’s another way for people to communicate with one another.
Becoming A Grown-up Child
One day in April 2007 my husband and I were the adult kids in our families — we are the only adult children
— and the next day we became what we laughingly call “real grown-ups,” helping first one, then two, and increasingly all three of our parents. It’s time to give back, and we do so willingly and happily. However the process is not easy, and it is not free from anxiety and tension. Check out the As Our Parents Age About page to learn more about the mission of this blog.
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As Our Parents Age by Marti Weston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on work at AsOurParentsAge.wordpress.com and AsOurParentsAge.net
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by emailing As Our Parents Age. To learn more about this blog go to the AsYourParentsAge About page.
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