Benevolent Ballet and Fall Prevention for the Elderly

Imagine engaging residents of assisted living and long term care facilities with an innovative exercise program designed to reduce falls by improving posture, balance, range of movement, coordination and awareness. According to Sheila Lehner, Member of the Royal Academy of Dance for over forty years and author of the Benevolent Ballet program for the elderly, when implemented regularly, fall rates are drastically reduced and quality of life improves.

This approach will engage the elderly with a person centered care approach that restores dignity, self-esteem and improves mood. Improved mood and self esteem may also reduce inappropriate behavior. Even the need for restraints may be reduced, according to their website: www.benevolentballet.com

This activity inspires even residents with Alzheimer's Disease or other dementias because the use of classical music and personalized approach speaks directly to the heart. The heart and soul cannot be affected by these conditions. So if you are an activity director, physical therapist, occupational therapist, or part of a Restorative Program at a long term care facility, Training seminars are being held in 2009. Contact: Sheila Lehner, lehners1@yahoo.com or directly at: 407-889-7770 in Florida.

NAPGCM Senior Housing Locator

It's about time. The National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers has just entered into an agreement with a National Multiple Listing Service that has been under development for the past four years featuring a Senior Housing Locator. This single database of all senior housing in the country plus US territories has just been completed and we had our professional user training this morning. This new site will pull from all federal and state regulatory agencies, will eventually expand to include other providers such as vetted listings of GCMs, elder law attorneys, durable medical equipment companies, and Area on Aging agencies with complete profiles and descriptions in an online database application and searches that may be conducted on mobile phones. More to come as I start using it but it promises to be a very innovative database which will give us much more complete descriptions such as breakdowns of Alzheimer's care provided by levels of care so we may conduct more complete and honest searches for our client families. All information has been completely vetted by regulatory agencies and maintenance will be conducted for name changes, company changes, etc. every 8 weeks. For more information, please contact: olga@agooddaughter.com

A New Option to Help Pay for Assisted Living Admission

An ElderLife Financial Line of Credit can help you pay for assisted living and senior living. In this new economy, families waiting for a house to be sold, for VA benefits, or those who simply want flexibility may find this resource helpful. Please watch this video:

Revised Quality of Life F-tags

CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) recently released several revisions to its Quality of Life F-tags. The revisions under the State Operations Manual, Appendix PP, Guidance for Surveyors went into effect on June 12, 2009 and can be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/nvnwx5. Apparently, no one told the nursing home in Boca Raton where I was visiting this week. Because of a medical situation involving a client I called the State Ombudsman's office for assistance in resolving the dispute. As a result, when I arrived for a 2pm meeting with the Ombudsman at the administrator's office, I was denied access. I will therefore arm myself now with a copy of the updated regulation which states under tag: 483.10(j)(2) - The facility must provide reasonable access to any resident by any entity or individual that provides health, social, legal, or other services to the resident, subject to the resident's right to deny or withdraw consent at any time and attempt to speak with them again. As my client’s geriatric care manager, I will exercise her right to advocacy.

Many thanks to Elizabeth Peterson, Executive Editor at HCPro, Inc. in Boston for sending me that information.

Sundowner's and Tough Love

We’ve had an Alzheimer’s client for the past three years whom we’ve lovingly cared for and have educated her boomer adult children in all aspects of the disease. Sometimes they listened and sometimes they made poor choices. But just recently she has developed sundowners behaviors and becomes quite irritated at approximately five every afternoon. Her caregiver who tends to her from 10 – 5 each day cannot stay past five pm and the client starts calling our offices pleading not to be left alone. Two days ago, our nurse stayed with her for hours until her medication took effect and last night she called me at 6PM asking if I could stay with her - - she was afraid to be alone. I picked her up and took her to the beach where we fed the birds, walked in the warm sand, ate ice cream and then drove her home. Once home she became agitated again. I asked her to take her evening medications and redirected her attention away from her latest troubles. After about one hour of reading to her from the Oprah Magazine and discussing the latest celebrity interview, she began to relax stating she would be ok for the night.

The problem is that she needs continuous supervision because she has suicidal ideations, has been known to wander, is depressed, and now has sundowner’s syndrome. We orchestrated a team effort organizing a crew consisting of the new evening aide, a nurse practitioner from her psychiatrist’s office, our nurse care manager, her daytime aide, and asked her children not to answer the phone for a few hours until the task was done. Yes, this was tough love, but it has now become apparent that her safety is more important than her reliance on our staff alone for her needs. If she is going to age-in-place at home, she will need either a live-in caregiver or round the clock certified nursing assistants to keep her safe. I’ve just heard that she didn’t throw out the aide, her medication has started to work, and all is well with her world. This story promises to have another happy ending. One I hope will last but will continue to monitor in the event it doesn't.